


Our path

by plaquettaire



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23216401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaquettaire/pseuds/plaquettaire
Summary: Modern- AU, from the first meeting in the high school (to hope the last one). Braime (Jaime + Brienne). There's not the twincest. Cercei exists.From the story:“How was your date?” he asked.Brienne sighed, hyperventilated, swallowed and almost cried. Her red face and her breathing nose made her looking like a dragon. Her hands gripped the door handle and she was about to close it on his nose, when he stopped her with a foot and a desperate face.“I overreacted.” He begged her. “I shouldn’t have interfered. I couldn’t bear the thought of you here with Hyle.” He said and that moved something: her face relaxed, her eyes opened wide. He pushed the right button. You, stupid, selfish Jaime. You know how to push her buttons, you know why it’s so easy for you to do it and you feel even guilty for doing it. And yet, you keep pushing.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 52
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well,hello friends and thanks for reading!  
> I'm here from my italian quarantinated house speaking ahah  
> Anyway, it's my second shot with an english fanfiction. I often write in my mother language. This is not new for me, but I'd like your opinion. I'm kind of excited!  
> Speaking about GoT and Braime, I love these two too much to let them go. I had to write and so why not share with you?  
> Sorry. Just let me know what you think guys and thank you for reading again.

**_Our path_ **

Their relationship began in high school, when he was at the end close to his graduation and she was at the beginning, very far from it.

She wasn’t a great beauty, not in the conventional way. She was too tall, too thin, her hair was a mess, her skin so pale and when she was embarrassed it turned red. Not too many people liked her. She was also too clever for the most of her colleagues and even if she was good in sports, nobody of them wanted her in their team. She just had a pair of amazing blue eyes that she used to freeze and scare people out. She had the power to intimidate people: her brain was so quick that when the most of her classmates had a clever intuition, she had already handed over her classwork; her answers were so ready and so prickly that nobody had the courage to reply.

“You terrify people.” Jaime began used to say later.

On the opposite, Jaime was a traditional beauty: tall, blonde, muscled, green eyes and a so bright smile. He was as good in sports as Brienne was. His tongue was sharp enough to cut, his vocabulary grown thanks to his father’s obsession for his children’s education and even if he wasn’t able to tell which city was the capital of the Vale of Arryn, he could insult others without anyone understanding what he said. He liked beer, girls (specially a particular one), but not people and people didn’t like him at all. They shared this common destiny after all. Even if he was so nice and good looking, nobody wanted him around.

They were both out of ordinary and ordinary people avoid extraordinariness. 

They met the day she was trying to complain about a certain bet: some boys wanted to find out if “she was a girl down there”, she said mimicking quotation marks with two fingers.

“That’s not possible.” A shocked principal replied. He shifted his position, embarrassed, under the desk. “I’m sorry, I can’t believe…” he babbled.

Brienne could hear the leather from his seat rubbing against his trousers, his fingers holding his hands and his throat swallowing saliva. She could already see where that conversation was going to end. Well, he deserved a shot. She was going to get up and leave when a voice stopped her.

“It’s true.” And those were the first three words Brienne heard from Jaime “It’s Hyle Hunt. He takes ten bucks, if you want to join.” He said to the principal.

Brienne couldn’t say if he was cutting up, playing not smart at all as if he didn’t care about school, about people or about any civil rules of conduct or if he didn’t care at all. At that time Jaime Lannister was just a name whispered in the hallways to her.

“What?” Brienne said shocked, ignoring his presence in the office till that moment. “The fuck are you anyway?”

He raised from the black couch on the background of the principal office and walked slowly to her. “Jaime Lannister.” He said as if she should have known. When her brow furrowed, he almost felt hit or moved, without giving a positive or negative inclination to that feeling. In the years after he would have found out that he loved the ignorance on her face that day. He felt like he could start over at least with one person, who didn’t believe him a loafer, a slow learner or an empty pretty face.

“Well, fuck you, Jaime Lannister.” She said carelessly.

Maybe it was because of her aggressive indifference, but he felt instantly interested in that weird manly female creature.

“Want to try?” he said with an evil grin on his lips, opening his arms, putting on display his tool between his legs, or well, _down there_. “Ten bucks you can’t and maybe Hyle Hunt is right.”

She was about to reply: men and their cocks, always so focused on it as if it could prove some kind of strength.

“Stop!” they both forgot of the principal, so focused on their quick verbal fight “Both of you!” he yelled, surprising them “ You are in punishment!”

“Well, congratulation, Jaime Lannister.” She whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“I don’t want to stay here too anyway.” Jaime begane, sounding frustrated.

He could already hear Cercei’s complains. She wouldn’t have cared if he was in punishment, if he tried to defend another woman or if the principal of his school was a complete incompetent, who preferred to punish a girl (a manly girl) instead of the boy (the womanly boy) behind her offended feelings. Cercei was an extremely practical and realistic woman, who didn’t care why he skipped an appointment or why he was late, she just knew that he wasn’t there with her, that she was alone. 

“Complaining won’t make the time pass faster.” Brienne replied, sounding anything but calm and relaxed as if she was on vacation, instead of closed in an empty class with a stranger doing nothing. She kept watching at her hands while scratching the paint on the desk with her nails.

“Not even talking with you will.” He said sarcastically, while he kept looking at the clock and stomping impatiently on the floor.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly.” Jaime repeated mocking her in a falsetto voice.

Brienne held a laugh behind a well-trained impassive face. “It’s not even close to me.” She just replied.

She didn’t look annoyed by him, she didn’t seem to have feelings at all, actually. When Jaime heard Hyle Hunt making assumptions about her _down there_ , he was expecting for the girl to run away or to slap the guy, but she didn’t move a muscle. She just waited for the next hour to go to the principal office and denounce the offense, in order to prevent the Hunt guy to torture another poor soul in the future.

Jaime didn’t buy it since it happened, he didn’t believe to her silence or to her stoic behavior.

Indeed, it wasn’t long until she spoke again. “Ten bucks?” she asked and that was the first time she showed personally emotional involvement in the famous bet. She sighed, her eyes turned dark, like a dark blue ocean.

Jaime was oddly interested in that spark of humanity of her, she could have feelings at all. “Underpriced or overpriced?” he tried to tease her. Maybe he was trying to pull rage out of her. Maybe he was trying to understand if she didn’t care of the bet because she didn’t think much about herself. Or what else. He was as young as impulsive.

“None.” She replied immediately “It’s sad to be priced in first place.” Astonished that he needed an explanation, that he hadn’t the ability of empathizing.

“They are calling you _ten bucks_ , just for you to know.”

“Oh well, good to know, I guess. Thanks.” She said pretending it didn’t hurt her. It was the same old story. She was so used to the pain she was feeling in that right moment, that the bet didn’t even surprised her at all. Children made fun of her all the time. If she should have told the story of her life till that moment, she would have divided it into three chapters by using the meanest nick name people mocked her with: _horse_ when she was a kid (because of her teeth), _tomboy_ (because of the lack of a visible beast) or _pustule_ (because of those white and red pimples on her forehead) when she was a teen and _ten bucks_ in the end.

Jaime sighed and watched at the clock. Five p.m. He was already late. Yeah, it was very sad, he was truly sorry for the girl, mocked for the rest of high school, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that he was going to be late at his appointment and that Cercei would have left him alone, at least for that night. He couldn’t bear to not see her for futility. All of his efforts outside of the school turned around her and their relationship and he didn’t want to throw them away. He always tried to please Cercei in every way he could, just to see her happy, to ease her dark inner spirit. In his mind she was wrapped in an aura of sadness, that he tried to lull with special attentions: listening and forgiving her whims, making her presents, treating her like a queen, never contradicting or arguing with her, just being the best boyfriend he could. Clearly it didn’t mean he could be late.

Jaime looked at the window and the garden outside and sighed again. Then he turned his face to the girl, who was stubbornly still, right as the principal wanted them to be. That stupid obstination enraged him even more. “You know what we can do?” he asked then aloud before the idea could take form in his mind.

“No, I don’t want to listen.” Brienne replied, pretending to play with her thumbs again.

“Don’t you want to get free?” he insisted frustrated, trying to think just about Cercei and her beauty “So you can climb back on the tree you fell from.”

“Very funny.” Brienne replied bored, just not in the mood to respond in kind “If you’d put all these efforts in studying instead of torturing me, I bet you would graduate with higher grades. Or just graduate.” She started “You got fantasy.” She considered in the end.

“What do you know about my grades?” he blurted annoyed “You were trying to stop a stupid asshole from judging you for your appearance just one hour ago. And now, look at you, you are already doing the same with me.”

Clearly, she hit a nerve. Just for one moment, the smug look on her face reminded him of his father’s one. Of Cercei’s. Of Tyrion’s. Of any other people’s out there who thought he won his scholarship because of his football ability, who thought he didn’t worth a thing outside a football field.

Frustration was going to make things worsen quickly and Jaime thought that maybe the real punishment for him wasn’t being closed in that class, keeping him away from his sweet half, but being close there with that girl, who was a big hypocritical, who showed sadness and concern for her nick name some seconds ago and then was ready to judge him without knowing him at all and…

“I’m sorry.” She blurted, breaking off his trail of thoughts.

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry.” She repeated, articulating the words slowly.

He stayed still, as if anybody never asked sorry to him, nor even pretended to be. That was new and put that girl on a different light. What kind of monster does apologize? “I don’t know your name.” he could just ask.

“Hyle Hunt took the trouble to give me a price, but he never mentioned my name.” she considered and that comment hit Jaime too.

She would have been called _ten bucks_ for five years starting now. And then he remembered why he stepped out and defended her in first place, why he was in punishment and even if Cercei would have complained, or worse threatened him of leaving him, it felt good to step against injustices and bullying. It was the right thing to do.

“He is an ass.” He said. “Even his father’s money couldn’t buy him the last exams. He will end up alcoholic behind a cash desk in some poor shop.”

And that was the second time Brienne had to suppress a smile, unsuccessfully this once. “I’m Brienne.” She said to make a peace, stretching a hand to him.

“Nice to meet you, Brienne.” He replied, shaking it.

“Nice to meet you, Jaime.”

And that was their first touch. His hand was strong, his grip caring and firm, his skin smooth and clear. On the other side hers was large and ruined, her nails were nibbled and her hold clumsy, as if she wasn’t been used to touch other people.

They were both watching their hands awkwardly, trying to not look in each other’s eyes on purpose. When he finally decided and looked up at her, she got red and smiled. She was shy after all, even if she played the big indipendent untouchable woman who knows what she is doing. He guessed she was just playing the part everyone wanted her to.

Brienne noticed how Jaime was looking at her and she left his shake, as if it would have burnt her. She tried to keep looking at his eyes, just to not let him win or think she was weak. Before she could notice, she was already looking at the blackboard and the clock behind him. Damn it, control yourself, Brienne.

She felt the need to talk about something masculine, to prove she wasn’t the faint lady everyone was trying to bring out since she grew up as a teenager. “Are you so good in football as everyone say?”

“So, you know me after all.” He considered with a grin on the face.

Brienne smiled. “I just know you play.” She liked how he was spontaneous, how he was confident, how he smiled so easily. She liked how he could make her smile so easily too. She felt lighter around him.

“That says a lot about me.” He said and his grin deepened for a moment. “And yes, I am good. Very good.”

Brienne would have sworn she saw something dark in Jaime, she would have sworn his sunny personality was trapped by something she ignored at that time in those gloomy eyes, as if there was something holding him back.

“I bet I could beat you.” She said trying to get his bright smile back.

“Bet?” he asked. It was for a bet that they ended up locked in a class. “I don’t think so.” _And I wouldn’t use that word so easily now on,_ he thought.

“I do.”

“Well, come to see me at the match on this weekend.” He invited her, intrigued by the idea of someone so confident to have the courage to challenge him. “If you don’t get afraid, you can try me.”

_A match?_ It would have been a social occasion. “I don’t do those kinds of stuff.” She thought about all those people who would have been there, about Hyle Hunt, about the principal and to his father, so sure she would have made friends soon. What if his father thought she did?

“What kind? Having fun? Come on!” Jaime tried “You need a friend in this place. I wouldn’t make it sane if it wasn’t for Cercei.”

And that was the first time Brienne heard her name: Cercei. It would have persecuted her for the rest of her life. She would have ended up hating that name. Cercei would have been mostly a name in her life, a sort of spirit or a lagendary monster, who shows up once in a while to make people talk about her again and then she disappears. She would have shaped Jaime’s life without living it at all. Not fully, not completely, not as Brienne would have done.

And yet in that first occasion, Brienne didn’t ask who Cercei was, assuming she was just a woman in her new friend’s life. Brienne just moved on and started talking about anything that crossed her mind. 

They kept going on with football: how she didn’t like the last night game in TV, while enthusiasm was an understanding for him. He called her an expert, again using that mocking girly voice that had nothing to do with her. And soon they found themselves facing each other, riding those tiny chairs, too small for both of them.

They talked about school too, about the inefficient school system they were forced in, about their classmates, their teachers and about the most stupid ways they have to punish students.

What about that girl in third class? Is she from Bravos for real? Are all the math teachers so hysterical? Who does really care about students and their brain? Why is everyone so obsessed with grades? In memorizing all those names and dates and lessons and forgetting to use the gray matter to think? Why aren’t there discussing classes? They would be both great in it.

Those were all arguments they talked about in their time together. They found out they surprisly agreed on the most of them. They also talked about injustices and the time passes, without nobody of them to watch at the clock, absorbed by the most silver tongue and the cleverest arguments. Brienne finally found somebody who didn’t turn his face when she got on fire, who listened with interest and who replied with the same rage.

They didn’t even notice the clock moving its hands to the six in the evening or the sun setting down. The class was covered in a warm orange light when the principal got in and interrupted that meeting.

“Tarth! Lannister!” he yelled “Torture is over.” And he freed them. He stayed in front of the door, waiting for them to speed up. He left just poor room to them to leave the place, as if he could control the situation by using the space around him.

Jaime was already standing up when Brienne collected her things and turned to watch at him, her colleague in the doghouse.

“So, will you come at the game?” he simply asked.

Brienne was ready to say no, to leave him and to never see him again, to store that odd friendship in the memory of that day, where nobody could ruin it or where the outside shallow world wouldn’t spoil it. She sighed and watched at him, in whom she saw something. “All right. I will.” Brienne approved, as if she was making who knows what kind of effort.

“See you there, Tarth.”

“See you there.”

No, it wasn’t there. She didn’t feel her heart punch there, in that right moment, even if he had the perfect smile, the perfect pair of green eyes and the perfect hidden soul. Even if the orange sunbeam was making the perfect atmosphere to fall in love. She would have never fallen for a boy after just one long talk. She needed more and she would have had it.

***

Brienne’s life went on as usual. She studied a lot, she made homework’s, she had interrogations, in which she proved her temper and her stubbornness again, as usual. She helped her father with the shop as usual. Even when he asked “what’s new?” in that hopeful voice pf his, she said “nothing, as usual” failing his trust and hurting her once more.

She spent just one moment thinking about Jaime: that weird, sad and sunny human being. The idea of him made her smile, maybe she was just happy that someone else looked beyond her face and her body image. Except for that vital, undervalued moment, she got absorbed by her life again.

She almost forgot about the match, till that very Sunday morning when she woke up and looked carefully at herself in the mirror. Her hair was even more messy than even, her skin pale and her body and her manner so ungraceful that she doubted herself to be a woman too. Maybe all the Hyle Hunts she met in her life were right. Maybe she would have never bloomed, never looked at herself seeing something she would be proud of.

Brienne went down to the kitchen, where his father was making pancakes in his bright way. And then she thought about Jaime again, for the second time in those four walls she called home. Something in her father remembered her about the boy in the class, the boy who plays football, the boy with sad eyes and clear smile.

“Hey, child, something bothering you?” he asked, showing off, while making a pancake jump in the pan.

“Chapeau!” Brienne said and clapped, ignoring his question.

“See? I’m a cool dad.”

“The coolest.” She complimented herself and got her cheek ready for the kiss he was intent on giving. Its wet sound drew her a smile.

Her father filled two plates, looked for the orange juice in the fridge and took two glasses from the draining board. He smiled and started to eat, making sounds of pleasure with his mouth, as if he was trying to convince a kid to eat. Maybe he did the same show when Brienne was a little child who refused food. “Seriously.” He said then, when he understood his play wasn’t going to fly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, dad.” She said, forcing her face in a smile. Brienne always tried to make Mr Selwyn Tarth feel better. Since her mother died, she saw a change in his behaviour. All the time he pretended to be happy, to please her, to make her feel overprotected, to have forgotten about all the sadness they went through. Protecting each other soon became a life purpose. They started to hide each other their feelings, to pretend to be happy, to fake smiles and ignore troubles and issues, left to be solved by themselves.

“Sure?” he asked again, elongating the vowels in playful tone. Then something clicked in him and he entertained the weirdest conversation with himself, playing his and her part, using a falsetto voice she already heard from someone else in that week.

“I’m not sure dad, I have a problem.” He said. “Tell me, my child.” He said, again. “I think I fancy a boy.”

“Dad!” she yelled embarrassed. Maybe she wouldn’t have turned red if she wasn’t thinking about a certain boy in that right moment. And the idea of bringing up her feelings, even if he misjudged them, made her shake her head compulsively and shocked.

Brienne grabbed the pancakes left in her plate and reached the door the faster she could. “I was kidding!” she heard him saying, while she moved away. Maybe he was even laughing. Unbelievable.

And suddenly she was outside, a pancake in her hand and Sunday’s home clothes on. Even more suddenly she found herself at school. The noise from the game reached her outside the field. Beer horns, the microphoned report, the yelling crowd, the dancing and singing cheer leaders.

She moved out of curiosity till the place. She found a tiny sitting space near someone else’s parents, a couple who were holding each other’s hands tightly. She sat and watched.

Jaime was running so fast, faster than anybody else. His mastery of the game was amazing, the way he eluded opponents, the way he throwed the ball so fast, clear and efficient enchanted her. He was so good, she didn’t believe it possible. She admired him for the rest of the game.

They won. As if it wasn’t obvious.

Brienne waited for the team to meet the audience. She hid in the behind, expecting Jaime to cheer with his family in first place. She never lost his sight for a moment. He was looking around, searching between the group of fellow students and then between the group of adults, but no one was there for him.

She thought she saw a change, a look of delusion in his eyes, a feeling she knew so well. In that right moment, the students, the louds, the yells and the cheers disappeared. She moved towards him in slow motion. He turned his face and saw her, then he smiled, making her smile too.

“So?” he asked. His face was a mask of sweat, his hair were stuck to his forehead. The headlight reflected and shined in his eyes. Satisfaction and happiness printed a bright smug grin on his face.

“You were right.” She said, yelling trying to talk over the delirious crowd and covering her ears with her own hands.

“Please, spell it again.” Jaime said, self-satisfied “Loudly.”

“You were right. You are good.” She repeated laughing. “Very good.”

A grin appeared on his face at her use of his own words. He thought one thing that was great about Brienne was that she really listened to him, she could stand up to him and she shared the same range of values, but just with one difference : she was younger, she had still the illusion she could change the world by denouncing an asshole. All right, it was more than just one thing, but he liked all of them. Maybe she could be his friend. Maybe he didn’t need Tyrion anymore. _Ahah_.

“Still want to play?” he challenged her, holding strong his helmet.

“More than before.”

Jaime laughed. “Challenge accepted.”

And that was the first of a lot of their meetings in football field. They would have played a lot more in the years after, on different grounds: on school’s field, on college’s, in that alley behind Brienne’s house many years later and even in his own house, between his father’s expensive statues and chamber pots.

Playing would have become a safe place for intimacy and to share each other’s trust. They would have learned more of each other by playing, than by talking. They would have spent the most of their time throwing a ball at each other and no one of them would have changed a single thing.

When Brienne came back home, she was welcomed by the usual “What’s new today?”. She smiled and played with her hair.

“Nothing.” She replied again.

But Selwyn Tarth saw something this time. He ignored his daughter, sighed and got back to his activities, dreaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I'm again, folks!  
> I don't know what to say that I didn't say in the first chapter's notes. I think I will just thank everybody who read and left me kudos. It's amazing. Just know I love you all and love being part of this community, and fangirling with you all.   
> Let me know what you think.   
> I don't know when I will update again. I think I need more time to write in english than in my motherlanguage.   
> To the next chapter ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Jaime Lannister spent all his time at school alone, on his own. He never had a friend, never tried and never wanted one. Or at least he was using to think like this. Nobody ever dared to talk to him, not honestly anyway. Sooner or later everybody would have taken advantage of him or wanted something from him: a recommendation in his father’s company, money, a spot on the team. His whole life was continuously on the spotlight and even if it looked amazing in a small community, that spot was bright, but lonely. He supposed his father’s reputation had something to do with it. His only friend in the world has always been is brother, Tyrion.

Jaime would have shared his place with Tyrion, if it was not for Mr Twyn Lannister, who considered his youngest son a joke.

Jaime was not like him. Jaime always tried to not be like him: he never aimed to Twyn’s company; he wasn’t interested in his money, always tried to help his brother, never forgot his mother. And even after all his trying, nobody ever looked beyond the surface. Everybody would have always considered him as the son of Twyn Lannister and nothing more.

So why waste any more time in trying? Why not play the part that had been assigned to him since he was born by his father himself? Jaime was his favourite son. Twyn made him study in the best school in the country, made him play in the best football team, made him eat the best food, made him admitted to the best college. He always manipulated his life.

“You can be someone.” He kept saying. “You must.”

On the other hand, Tyrion always saw Jaime as his big brother. Jaime protected him when he had been bullied, when people took fun of him, stayed at home with him when his father kept him hidden. He was a perfect big brother after all and his best friend too. So Jaime spent every afternoon at home with him. He didn’t do it out of pity. He liked to close the door and talk about school, grades, the future, girls and, of course, about Cercei.

And then there was Cercei.

Jaime met Cercei when they were both kids. They grew up together as the heirs of two big families. Their relationship was also encouraged by Twyn Lannister, who cannot picture a better pairing for his precious son.

Jaime liked Cercei as he was five years old. Soon he learned nobody else liked her, even if she was beautiful, sweet and kind. Just as for him, when people outside (or normal people, as she was used to say) looked at her, they just saw her money and her social position. They were unreachable together. Then the loneliness helped to create a strong bond that lasted till high school, when it first cracked.

If Jaime tried his best to distance himself from Twyn’s boat, Cercei was rowing in the opposite direction and she was pushing him too.

But she just wanted his best.

***

Brienne woke up every day very early in the morning. Brienne liked the light and the sun. She liked the sunrises and every kind of wonder of nature. She was just the kind of person who enjoyed the simple things.

If Jaime, Tyrion and Cercei lived in a golden cage, Brienne wasn’t.

Mr Selwyn Tarth encouraged her daughter to spend her time outside the house, be late at night, to think about colleges outsides the country, to not stay at home with him to watch tv. She couldn’t understand if he wanted her to enjoy her life because her mother couldn’t or if he didn’t want her to see him crying at night. Maybe both.

That freedom was a burden for her. That freedom tasted of salty tears she didn’t want to cry.

Winter was the best season. The cold gave her an excuse to close the door of her room and not get out till the morning. Her father didn’t object when she prepared a tea and spent her time with him. But Brienne couldn’t elude him and his little boosts when the spring came. 

So when the days got longer, she had to spend more time outside of the house to avoid his questions and to not make him worry about her _inability to socialize like a normal human being_. Yes, someone told those exact words to her.

She was used to walk as slowly as she can, to read and re-read every chapter of her school books in the library, to write in the nicest handwriter, to train and re-train for the team addimission, just to spend more time and don’t be back early at home where her father would have asked her if she had some friends, if she was enjoying her teenagerhood. That lifestyle also made her the best student in every class.

In one of those spring days, just after her punishment and just before the end of the school year, she met Jaime again. Brienne had read for the fourth time the origin of Roman empire; she had written again her literary essay, trying to avoid any ink stain; she had checked her counts for math class and it was finally about time to go back at home. The sun was going down and there was literally nobody in the streets. She was quietly walking when she heard the roar of an engine.

“Hey.” Someone said.

She jumped back in fear and grabbed her backpack suspenders tightly. Her spine stiffened, her legs stopped and if she could feel it. There was nothing to worry about, just a walk through the street, Brienne knew. But since the _worst day_ , sometimes she was absorbed in her mind and her memories. Maybe her father was right. She needed to open herself to people, to let someone in.

“Tarth.” The same person said. “Everything all right?”

Brienne watched out and there was Jaime Lannister in a car in front of her. “Hey.” She forced herself to say. “Fine. I’m fine.” She remembered to reply.

“Don’t look like it.” And then he did something weird. He looked at her, almost interested. He eyed her, head to foot. He even seemed worried for her.

“No, no. I’m fine, I swear, I just…” but he wasn’t listening.

Then something in the car got his attention. “Want a ride?” he talked over her.

“No, thanks.” Brienne said, trying to not be rude. Soon she heard the voice of her father in her mind, suggesting her to not be stupid, to accept and to make some friends. _What can possibly happen? How bad can it be? You will be at your home tonight, my child, safe and sound._

Jaime wasn’t convinced. He narrowed his eyes, as if he was up to something. “Come on, jump up!” then he said enthusiastically, moving his stuff from the side seat. He even opened the car door to let her in. There was something in her.

Later she couldn’t explain what made her get on the car and look at Jaime Lannister driving. The car was small and the seat so close to the dash, she barely fitted in. There was a lot of crumpled pieces of paper on the floor. The air smelled of a tree shaped car perfume. The surfaces were sticky and there were breadcrumbs everywhere, as if he was used to have lunch there.

The landscape changed soon. The shadows on the streets got longer and darker, the light orange. Some lamppost turned on. The car moved from the tower blocks with so many windows and so many families living in, to the terraced houses with bigger and bigger gardens. It felt like being in another city.

“Where are we going?” she asked alarmed, when she didn’t recognize the area.

“I don’t know, where are we going?” he asked, trying to impress her with his good driving, as he would have done with anything else he did.

He turned the wheel slowly to take a curve. Brienne’s eyes fixed on his hands and long fingers. “Where were you going?” she asked, never losing the sight of him for a second.

“Home.” He replied “Want to come?”

“Where?” 

“To my house.”

Her father spoke in her mind again: _go, my child. He may become your friend. You almost did it._

Jaime saw her hesitation. He didn’t know if he was asking her because he remembered how good it felt to talk to her some days ago, or because he needed to be at home soon. “Don’t make me beg you.” Jaime said, looking at the clock.

“All right.” _Good job!_

“Hurray, hurray!” he cheered.

Jaime kept driving, thinking about what he did. He never had a filter between his thoughts and his actions. He was the personification of spontaneity (and stupidity, someone would have said). Sometimes he would have wanted to be like Tyrion and Cercei, or even his father. Thoughtful. Wise. It would have kept him out of troubles for sure. Or uncomfortable situations.

He looked at Brienne and he didn’t feel uncomfortable.

The car approached to a wide meadow, green and perfectly shaped. Brienne thought at how many gardeners and how many hours of hard work it needed. There wasn’t a bush, a flower or even a leaf out of place. It looked like a piece of moulded plastic. A path for cars led them from a black iron gate to a marble fountain in the middle of a square, where Jaime parked the car.

He rushed to the door, opening it. “Welcome to the Lannister Manor. ” Jaime said. He greeted her, waving his hand like a noble man from some centuries ago.

Brienne looked around with wide opened eyes. The gold finishes, the varnished wooden forniture, the glowing marble from literally anywhere sparkled in her so blue irids. All of the Lannister’s house was meant to shine. Everything was still, perfect. The inside was plenty of space, built to be covered in light all day long, from the sun during the day or from the moon during the night. Brienne couldn’t see the road from any of those numerous windows. It was like an oasis in the very center of the city.

“It has a name.” She said genuinely surprised, more like a question than a proper statement.

“No. Nobody call it so but me.” And from that moment on, there were two people calling it so. _I don’t want to come back to the manor_ ; _we should stay at the manor_ ; _the devil lives_ _in the manor_. Those were some of the phrases they kept using while growing up as adults.

“It’s so white.” She commented, still looking around, enchanted by the stillness, the awe and the amazement that the place inspired. She felt so little in that so giant house, a feeling she wasn’t used to feel.

Jaime grinned sadly. He always lived of reflected light, arousing the feelings Brienne was experiencing in every person he met. He felt so similar to his house. He was just like his father wanted him to be, like he made up, exactly like his house. The only way to get out of it was Cercei and football. When he was playing or when he was getting ready for the match behind the scenes, his mind was focused around it. He could throw a ball or run on a field and not think at all and that was everything he was asking for. Cercei gave him the same feeling. He could stay with her, laugh, caress or kiss her and forget about anything else in the world.

Jaime sighed and lied on the couch. All the white Brienne was talking about suffocated him. At least the couch was comfortable. At least there was a ball on it. At least he could keep his hands busy by playing with it. “I hate it.” He confessed loudly staring at her. Jaime didn’t know what made him speak so openly. He wasn’t used to have someone to talk to. Maybe Brienne’s eyes were so sharp that he couldn’t lie to them. When he realized what he said, he wanted to look away from her, but he found himself unable to. He kept staring at her eyes, as if they could freeze him. He just throwed the ball to her in order to break the moment.

Brienne’s reflexes didn’t betray her. She wasn’t seeing that coming, but she caught the ball at the very last second, making him smile a little. Then her heart skipped a beat. “I hate my house too.” She said thinking about her dad, her so loving and beloved father, her so missed mother, the cage they built to shield each other. A cage of the fake lifes they pretended to live in, emotionlessly, safely.

She throwed the ball to him again, turning a game in an open-heart dribbling.

Unlike Brienne, Jaime was ready to catch the ball. He reached out and got it. Again, he couldn’t bear the effect that her so pure and blue eyes had on him. Instinctively he used a joke with a heavy voice to protect himself. “What? Your mom pushing you to wear a skirt?”

Maybe Hyle Hunt’s aura was still glowing around him.

Brienne took a deep breath, soon interrupted by the shot. She grabbed the ball and she whispered “She died years ago.” Holding so tight that thing as she was holding her tears. It lasted just one moment, till the face of his father smiling hit her brain and she throwed the ball again. _Friends are made to share feelings._

“Mine too.” Jaime replied as he had the thing, as if it allowed each of them to talk.

“My father doesn’t want to talk about it with me.” She shared and it was weird. The more the words got out of her mouth, the more she wanted to talk. She didn’t even know Jaime Lannister at all, but there was something in him, something she recognized herself in, something that made her at ease. He should have felt it too, because he tossed again the ball to her, allowing her to talk or to keep talking. A little smile formed on her lips before of going on. “He calls it the _worst day_. But I can’t even name her anymore in his presence.”

Maybe there’s some kind of bond forming between motherless children. Maybe orphans do recognize each other by some look of the eyes. Maybe there’s a mark on each soul, a too aged spirit in a younger body. A wound that never heal, that you can ignore, but it’s there and sooner or later the blood will stain your clothes, will colour your skin, till it will be impossible to neglect it. And maybe other orphans can see. Jaime felt stained.

In that moment, while Brienne was talking, Jaime was sure he could see the wound, the pure child’s skin, cracket behind her eyes. Even Tyrion couldn’t understand him. Even Cercei decided to ignore her own mother’s death. Or maybe he and Brienne were just too sensitive and they didn’t want to admit it. 

He received the ball again. “My memories of her are fading.” He confessed and he must have crackened too, because he felt the urge to look away and play.

It’s amazing how close to a person you can feel in just a few minutes if there’s a sparkle. It’s amazing how good that sparkle feels. Brienne could feel her heart beating. For the first time in her life she was connected to another human being, they were on the same page, she didn’t need to speak herself. She felt a wave of sympathy from him. She wanted to share and to hear more from him.

“Jaime, is that you?” a voice interrupted them, yelling down the stairs and to the main entrance “I’m trying to study here. I haven’t your...” The voice kept saying, while proving the existence of doppler effect. The echo increased while a small figure approached to them, in front of Brienne.

“Oh. Hi.” The litlle figure said.

“Hi.” Brienne replied, cursing the lack of the ball or anything else to play with her hands.

“Tyrion.” He reached out his hand to take hers. “The little brother.” He said trying to be funny.

Brienne wanted to laugh, but she wasn’t sure she could. So she covered the mouth with an hand awkwardly. Then she had to bend down and curve her spine to give him the other one and shake. Was it the right way to do it? Was she supposed to not look at him, to play dumb?

“And you are?” Tyrion asked, still shaking his hand, trapped in Brienne’s. The brothers looked at each other, laughing because of her shyness and her turning red skin.

“Brienne.” She replied immediately, remembering the good manners. She wanted to disappear. She felt too big and clumsy even in that so giant place, she seemed to appreciate some moments ago.

“Don’t worry, he is being an ass. He likes to embarrass people.” Jaime said and just then Brienne pulled her hand away. _Come on, what are you doing?_

“And you are late.”

“We don’t have an appointment.”

“Yes, we do.” He corrected him “But if your friend is here, she can hear about Cercei too. Misery loves company.”

Cercei. That name again. She heard it just once or twice, she didn’t know who this Cercei woman was, but Brienne saw the different look in Jaime’s eyes when he or someone else named her. When he was speaking her name, he was happy, there was a shine in his smile and it was obvious he was talking about the girl he loved. Brienne imaged her as beautiful as he was, thin, long hair, always smiling and with full pink cheeks. Instead when Tyrion pronounced her name, a blue coat covered his eyes and he turned sad. He looked at the floor and avoided her gaze. The smile disappeared and he grabbed the ball, just to keep his hand busy, as he did some minutes ago when he said to hate his house.

What this Cercei girl did to him?

“I don’t think he wants to talk about something so personal with me.” Brienne murmured to relieve the atmosphere of embarrassment Tyrion created.

“Why not? He speaks about her all the time.” The little brother said in a passive-aggressive voice.

“Are you mad at me?” Jaime asked, angry and desperate.

“Why should I?”

Brienne’s eyes moved from brother to brother, like a ping pong match. She didn’t have a brother to fight with. Plus her father grew her up in the most peaceful house in the universe. She felt uncomfortable and wanted to disappear again. She wasn’t used to the evil and sarcastic frankness that Tyrion was throwing at Jaime. She didn’t know why she was there in first place.

“All right,” she said proving to have a voice. And that was even odd for her, because she has always been the weirdo in the room who never stops speaking to prove a point to teachers or to the principal of her school. _But not with me, my child._ “I’m going away.”

The brothers interrupted. Tyrion sat on the couch and waited for Jaime to say something to his friend, just enjoying the scene that was about to come.

“You just came.” The older brother said, sounding sad for real.

“Yes, but I don’t want to be in the middle, so…” and she pointed with her head to the door. “Bye.” She waved awkwardly her hand to both of them.

Stubborn, Jaime thought and he looked at her leaving, cursing himself and Tyrion too. He let her for a moment, standing with hands in the pockets, when suddenly he remembered something and run for his friend. He found her still on the path, stepping on the gravel that must have hurt her feet as his own too. He hated gravel.

“Brienne,” he called, making her turn to look at him “I’m sorry for him.” He said, joining hands like a pray.

The sky was getting darker and the light from the street were still so far to see something. The air was still cold when the sun set down and Brienne felt the need to shrug her shoulders. “Don’t worry.” She accepted his apology with an only hinted and shy smile, then she moved to walk away again.

“No, wait.” He stopped her again. He didn’t seem to suffer from cold weather. He was wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans and he didn’t seem bother like she was. “When I saw you today, I remembered that day at school.” Jaime started to explain “I didn’t tell you after that, but I have a thing for you.” He searched in his pockets for a thing he had saved in his car before, just waiting for the right moment to give it to Brienne.

It was a ball of paper, crumpled and bad stretched to be bent and given. Whoever writing that was, it was confused, fast. The paper was unclean, maybe he was left handed. “What is it?” she asked, remembering of all those pieces of paper in his car.

“A letter. From my father to the principal. Or at least, he will think it’s from my father.” Jaime replied, smiling satisfied.

Brienne started to read to that confused and dirty letter _: I ask you to vote down the student Hyle Hunt…_ and that was enough. “Why?” she asked in hurry. Her heart punched hard in her chest. She didn’t want justice in that way, it wasn’t right or fair. Also it was useless. But there was something... That kindness, that sweetness that moved Jaime to fight and defend her, just as he did the first time they met.

“I like to think myself as a knight.” He said almost reading her mind.

Brienne laughed, snorting and making a weird sound with her mouth that made him laugh too. They started to laugh so hard that they were almost crying. “You are not.” She was barely able to speak.

“All right,” Brienne said when they both stopped and compose themselves. “now I need to go for real.” And she was about to walk again when he stopped, not wanting to let her go.

“Brienne. If you can’t talk to you father, you can talk with me.” Jaime offered.

“I will remember.”

“Just, toss a ball when you want.”

“You too, Jaime. Have a goodnight.”

***

Jaime walked back at his place. A warm feeling was burning up in his chest. He couldn’t control the stupid smile on his face. He loved the look of disappointment on her face, the purity and the candor she emanated or how her features relaxed with a stupid joke. She was stubborn, indeed, but also ready to explode in laughs and even cry naturally.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tyrion interrupted the trails of thoughts. He was looking shocked at him, as if he couldn’t believe he made a friend after all.

“What do you mean?” Jaime said. He pretended to be confused, to hide to his brother what he was feeling. What the hell, he was trying to hide them even to himself! But all in all, he knew what Tyrion meant. He recognized the warmth and the stupid smile he was wearing. And immediately his mind flied to Cercei, to her sad smile, her body, her embrace and her kisses.

Tyrion grinned in that way of his, when he knows something and he doesn’t want to share, when he treats him like a stupid. “You know this is the first person who step a foot in this hell, right?” he tried to make him understand. His father was always used by both of them make the other feel the gravity of the situation.

“Yes, I know.”

“So?”

“So what?”

Tyrion softened, tired to explain and sincerely moved by his brother’s good heart and maybe intentions. “You know she is a little like me...” he didn’t want to say it aloud, to not hurt Jaime, but he needed to understand.

“No, she is not.” Jaime spoke over him.

“…And I don’t want you to make fun of losers.” Tyrion raised the voice. “Or deceive her.”

Jaime sighed. “I’m not, all right?”

Tyrion looked at Jaime. He saw something this time, a sparkle, a light turning on. He heard him laughing with that girl. How bad could it be to have a friend? “All right.” He sighed too, mimicking his brother. “What about Cercei?”

“She is coming for dinner.”

“Hurray, hurray.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh mother. I'm already at chapter 3.  
> So, listen to me, my friends. I've kind of got an illumination, you know, like a light turning on in my head and I know exactly what I want to do, chapter by chapter, with this story.   
> I'm sorry if sometimes it takes me more. It depends from work, as always.   
> Anyway, thank you for reading. I hope someone likes this story and someone else is fangirling with me :)  
> See you soon!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The last days of school are always the worst for everyone. Everyone except Brienne Tarth. Since the first day, she got a head start on her homework, so when spring came Brienne was already studying the scholarship program of the second year, making her the best student in her classes. She didn’t have to get herself ready for the last interrogations or exams, so she was the only one walking lightly along the hallways during the last month.

It was even easy for her. She was smart and she knew it. That cleverness was the thing she liked the most about herself, if not maybe the only one. She didn’t have a great relationship with her body, she wasn’t self-confident and maybe, just maybe, the teenage hood had something to do with it. Or at least it was what she was hoping for.

She never spent so much time in front of a mirror, never looked at herself for so long. She didn’t like the pale skin, the yellow hair, the too prominently teeth, the plain and big body. She was too tall, too thin, too muscled. Nothing of her felt feminine and that’s why she cut her hair short when she was thirteen. That move gave her strength and the confidence she needed to voice her polemical tendency, to win her wars. From that moment on, her personality was closed in her messy hair.

One day, at the very beginning of summer Brienne was looking for a book in her locker when she saw Jaime Lannister coming her direction. His presence could make her insecure and nervous. So she pretended to search for real, in order to hide that stupid, anxious and hoping expression that she had on the face. She waited for the very last moment when he anticipated her. “Tarth.” He said.

“Lannister.” She replied, popping out from the door of the locker. She felt so nervous that the books almost fell from her grip. Awkwardly she recollected them, making him smile.

“What are you doing so happy?” he asked, leaning against the wall behind him, as if he actually wanted to stay with her.

It was stupid to believe he didn’t want to. He had already proved that there was some kind of connection between the two of them, but something made Brienne looking for reassurances. “Happy? I’m not happy.” She replied caressing her books.

“Last day, huh?” Jaime said pointing at her hands. He must have noted her gesture.

“Just for this year for me,” Brienne said smiling, thinking about her good grades and how proud they made her feel “but last day for ever for you.” And she sighed, thinking about a school where Jaime Lannister was not in it, even if se met him just once or twice.

“I’m going to college.” His expression hardened “Give me credits.”

“I meant last day in this hell.” She rapidly replied. Did he believe to be so stupid, to have to prove again and again that he got some brain? She was confused, because she thought to be the insecure one in that conversation.

“No.” He said, feeling like arguing.

“Yes.”

“No. You are an open book.”

“Yes.” She said for the last time and on this once she wore the best serious expression her face could bear, frowning and stretching all the muscles of her forehead.

Jaime softened. “So you can lie after all.”

Brienne sighed with relief. “I can, but I don’t want to.” She didn’t even like to fight, not for the wrong reasons at least.

He smiled like a seasoned senior in high school and in life, as if he figured everything out and for a moment Brienne believed him to and felt uncomfortable. Where was the ease and the cosiness there were some days ago? She met the Jaime Lannister anybody else knew.

“I don’t believe it either.” He finally said before of leaving.

Brienne would have replied. If she had the time, she would have said that he didn’t know her at all, that she believed in his skills. She would have punched him in the gut and she would have called him an asshole and then he would have got she was just angry and not believed to that insult too.

The good mood was gone and she got back home, slapping the front door, making his father smiling in that annoying way.

Selwyn Tarth, on the other hand, just got what he always wanted.

***

When the day came, Jaime felt nervous. That stupid blue dress didn’t fit well, the hat flattened his hair, the skin itched because of the bad elastic fabric of the tunic and his shoes were so uncomfortable he just wanted to get back home to wear a pajama and socks.

He loved socks so much.

Jaime started to look around without even noticing. He would have wanted to find Cercei in the crown, standing on the grass, clapping for him, for his graduation, for his brain, for his achievements. He knew he wouldn’t have found her, but he couldn’t help to try.

Neither his father was there. The least he could do for him was attend to his ceremony. Apparently, it didn’t earn Twyn’s attention.

But Tyrion was there. His little brother. Jaime turned his head to look at him and he saw him thumbs up, smiling. He smiled too. The part of his family that counted for him was there.

Tyrion woke up that morning because of his brother restlessness. He heard him walking back and forth in his room, not caring about the late (or early?) hour, as if nobody could hear him.

In a first moment, on one of those heavy silent dinner with the Lannister devil and Cercei, Jaime said he didn’t need or want anybody at his cerimony. None of the two asked him why, they just nodded. Tyrion had to admit he nodded too, but at least he was already thinking about what to wear, till that very morning, when Jaime’s nervous steps woke him up.

Tyrion worn his best dress, that was from some cousin’s wedding. It was warm and black and he was melting under the early summer sun.

He was waiting for his brother to walk on the stage and take his damn piece of paper, when he saw a familiar face among the crowd. Jaime’s friend was attending at his ceremony too.

She was wearing long blue trousers and a white shirt, pretty masculine, but from a certain distance it made her look like taller. Or maybe it was just Tyrion to be a nut about height. She looked uncomfortable as if it was not her school, as if they weren’t her fellows, as if she didn’t know a person there. He didn’t know anybody too, but he supposed he hadn’t the same eye on his face.

“Waiting for someone?” he asked when he reached her.

“No.” She said. She didn’t have to turn her face to him to know who she was speaking to. So she had already looked around and spied who was there and who wasn’t.

“Oh, so you are looking for someone you don’t want here.” He deducted “She won’t come. Don’t worry.”

Brienne played dumb. “Who?”

“Cercei. She comes every night to eat at our table, but she considers this a _little thing_. Her word, not mine.” He justified himself.

At that time, Brienne knew Jaime from long enough to have heard Cercei’s name at least ten times. And when he didn’t call her by name, she was _my girlfriend_ on his tongue.

In some ways, she feared she could have met Cercei that day. She didn’t bother at the beginning, but then she found herself weirdly relieved when she didn’t gaze new faces at the ceremony.

If she had to be honest, she felt sad for him and happy for herself. Cercei’s absence meant one thing: he wasn’t as important for her as she was for him. How couldn’t Brienne deny that she felt a spark of hope on that day? That she knew he would have suffered once understood, but sooner or later he would have been free. That even if Jaime was completely invested in Cercei, she wasn’t and she would have never been his, she would have never given him what he needed, just because she would have never understood Jaime.

“It’s his turn.” Tyrion said beside her and the both of them turned to watch at him.

Jaime was walking awkwardly smiling. It wasn’t one of those fake smiles of his, but sincerely happy. He looked even sky in his blue tunic, looking at every step he was making, maybe hoping to not fall in front of all those people.

Tyrion yelled and clapped cheering on him. Brienne clapped and while she was clapping for Jaime and his high grades, she realized she was looking at him in another prospective. She was looking at his smile, at his clever brain, at those green eyes. And while she was looking, her heart punched so fast in her chest that she tried to stop it with an hand on her throat.

“Will you go to the party?” Tyrion asked speaking on the crowd, breaking the spell and making her feet fall on the ground again.

“What party?”

Gods, just Jaime could be a friend to that so out of world girl. “At Tyrell’s.” he replied, trying to push her to go too. “Here, Jaime is coming.”

Tyrion pointed at his sadly smiling brother who was holding his parchment, already coming, almost running. They both reached Jaime. Of course, Brienne was faster, with those legs, how couldn’t she? She was already cheering on him, when Tyrion arrived.

“I’m so proud of you.” Brienne congratulated to him, laughing. The sun was shining high, forcing her to squint, hiding her beautiful blue eyes. Her hair looked almost white under that light. Her entire figure was so white that you could see some drops of sweat, slipping on her forehead.

Jaime was looking at her and smiled even brighter. His eyes were shy and he tried to hide it, biting his lips. They kept looking at each other, excluding Tyrion who was watching sceptically at the two of them. “Yeah, we both are, brother.” He interrupted them, joining to the celebrations.

“Stop, it’s not a big deal.” Jaime said modestly “Everyone graduates sooner or later.”

He wasn’t pretending, Brienne knew. “Yeah, but…” she tried to chill him up, making his mood matching to his face expression. She would have wanted him to see himself as she was doing: he was smart and he even earned a scholarship, how could he not see?

“You will too.” He continued, without pretending to be modest.

“Father didn’t have to pay for it.” Tyrion got in the way, making him laugh “You can rub it in his face.”

Brienne was looking fascinated at the two brothers. She was starting to understand what kept them tied to one another.

“I look forward to it. Just wait tonight.” Jaime said smiling, this time starting to seem happy for once. He waved the parchment in front of Brienne’s face, who needed to swat it like a fly with one hand. His enthusiasm was contagious, growing minute by minute and it was excluding Tyrion again.

The younger brother had to clear the throat to draw the attention of the other two. He already couldn’t bear them. “Speaking of which,” he started “our friend Brienne just said to me she didn’t know about the party. You should take her there.” He didn’t like the girl completely. Of course, she was better than Cercei. Who wouldn’t? But her relationship with Jaime was making him feel excluded more than once and that feeling was poisoning him. He felt bad for the girl, for his behaviour towards her. He took note to say sorry.

“No, really, I don’t want to, I never went to a party and my father would die.” Then Brienne closed her eyes and her father appeared, to torment her as his spirit was used to do. _I would have pushed you, my child._ He said.

“That’s why you have to go.” Tyrion pressed and immediately she froze him in place with just one glaze.

Actually Tyrion and Jaime’s plan for the night was to go to the closer market in the neighbourhood, buy a pack of the cheapest beers and drink all of them. After they would have tried to walk back home. They had even established some rules: don’t take aspirins; don’t complain about headache; eat a lot of fried chips to cover the stomach with some oil; they first one who break them had to pay.

“What about our night?” Jaime asked, worried about his brother too.

“I’ll survive.”

“All right.” Jaime approved and he felt oddly happy to have some time to spend with his new friend. It was weird how easily he was to be convinced when it came to her. “Want to go?” he said to her.

At that point Brienne just couldn’t back out. “All right.” She accepted and she waited for Jaime to pretend to bow and to go to his schoolmates who congratulated him, to turn to Tyrion and to say “You are an ass.”

Now he started to understand what his brother saw in that girl. “I root for you, sis.” He just replied, shrugging. And that was even better than an excuse from Tyrion’s point: they were even.

***

Brienne wished to be different a lot of times. She wished that she could see herself from the outside, that her brilliance could shine out and that her appearance could reflect her soul. She felt trapped in her body, as if it wasn’t beautiful enough like she was on the inside. She felt it was holding back her tongue and her brain, not allowing her to express her nature completely.

If she wasn’t ashamed of her appearance, she would have done everything differently. She would have said to Jaime Lannister that she was glad to go to the party with him, that she could have played the part Cercei didn’t want to. She would have said to Tyrion that she didn’t need him to impress his brother. She would have said to her dad to not interfere and she would have worn a fancy dress, maybe a skirt and she would have blushed. Yes, why not.

But nothing of these would have happened, because the truth was that she didn’t have the gut.

She could respond in kind, punch a guy, play football with boys, but she didn’t have the gut to play the girl. Why? Well, she didn’t have a mother to be taken as an example, for starters. Plus, her father never told her what kind of woman she was. In Brienne’s mind, she was just her mother, she didn’t have an identity outside of the family as much as he didn’t. So life taught Brienne that love and roles were made to bring happiness and to make people miserable all at once.

Her brain and her identity were the most important thing to preserve. She would have never been like other girls, even if she hoped that one day she could let go and play a part. Maybe she would have learnt that boy and girl were just labels, as much as trousers and skirts, and those labels don’t change what you are, but just let you to get it out.

That wouldn’t have happened soon, not even within the upcoming few years.

So, she didn’t spend so much time in dressing or brushing her hair, as any other girl of her age would have done, just because any other girl would. She spent the afternoon working up the courage to say everything that crossed her mind, till the bell rung and her father opened the door.

Brienne ran downstairs to find Jaime Lannister amiably chatting about cars, manual gearbox and guys. She heard her father saying exactly, word by word “So you are the guy.” and Jaime blushed scratching the back of his neck.

“What guy?” Brienne asked to take him out of embarrassment.

“The one who will take you back home very late tonight.” Selwyn Tarth said with a bright smile.

“Dad, stop, please.” She felt embarrassed too and everything she wanted to do, even if it took hours to get ready to, was to take her coat and get out of that house and maybe yes, do what he always asked for: staying out all the night. Selwyn laughed at her reaction, making her blush more and more “Let’s go.” Brienne just said, walking through the door and getting as fast as she could in his car.

“He’s funny.” Jaime said when he finally reached her. Of course, he didn’t know him at all. He turned the engine on and lowered the handbrake. The car left the block soon.

The night was quiet and chilly. The wind was getting through the windows, waving that lock of hair that was on Brienne’s forehead. Jaime looked at her. He thought that if there was Cercei with him, her own hair would have slapped his face and he would have ended up eating it.

“He is not.” Brienne replied quietly.

“Better than mine.” Jaime said and he punched with a finger a keychain, hanging down the rear-view. It was a tiny ball, that didn’t exactly fall on her lap, but it gave her the idea of the game they were playing at his place. It bounced back and forth, hitting the car roof and moving dust everywhere. 

“At least he is not trying to find you a boyfriend.” He heard her saying.

“Oh no, he does.” Jaime tried to make her feel less alone that she thought to be “He pushes me to Cercei literally every night. I think he wants me to get her pregnant to have an excuse to prepare the wedding.”

“What?” Brienne asked, shocked and oddly angry with him. No, not angry. Disappointed. She was feeling disappointed. Because maybe he could have done it for real. Or because maybe he was having sex with a girl who wasn’t at his graduation day and not even at the after party. She understood she was fool. Just on that morning, she believed she had a chance, but in that car she saw it fly away, like a hair in the wind.

“Fathers, huh?” he said, never imaging what she was getting through.

Or maybe he did.

She suspected he always knew, since the first day he met her. None of them had the courage to speak again. The silence felt heavy. They could cut the atmosphere with a knife. The car was roaring, the wind blowing and no one was talking.

***

Nothing prepared Brienne for what she found at the party. The noise was the first thing she couldn’t bear. She couldn’t image the sounds that could be generated by a single party. Even the same people, moved in another building, couldn’t make the same noise they were doing in that house. It was crazy and it made her feel so out of place.

The other thing she noticed was that even if she recognised some faces here and there, she never spoke to those people in the school, remaining a corner figure in each class. If she would have disappeared, nobody could have noticed.

The party was set in the Tyrell’s giant house, maybe just a little smaller than the Lannister Manor. But if the _Manor_ was all white and cold, the Tyrell’s was made out of wood and warm. The garden was full of trees, bushes and flowers. It was alive, completely opposite to the plastic house she saw in Twyn Lannister’s realm.

They walked slowly, never looking at each other. In that moment, Brienne understood there would have always been a big fat elephant in the room with them. Its name wasn’t Cercei, even if she was tempted to blame her. It wasn’t even important if he was having a physical relationship with her or someone else and Brienne would have tortured herself continuously in the next years, trying to understand what was going wrong between them two. The point was that they were both feeling something, they were both too scared and they both liked to scare in order to draw attentions away from their own selves.

It was too obvious: the confidences, the games, the laughs, the looks, the silences. All of those things felt heavy, sparkly and electric.

Brienne spied at Jaime from under her bangs and her lashes. “Jaime, listen.” she started to say and then she didn’t know how to go on.

The door opened and saved her, just as he noticed the seriousness on her face. “Hey, Jaime.” A voice welcomed them just on the porch. Brienne recognized it as Loras Tyrell’s. The tall, blond, beautiful and carefully looking at Jaime boy approached. He was already drunk and unstable on his feet.

“Hey.” He replied, trying to be kind with a hand on the other’s shoulder.

Loras let them approach to the kitchen, where a guy was serving beers for everybody. He blinked at Loras, who avoided the glare, raising head and eyes to look at the ceiling, being even more obvious. “The party is outside, on the pool.” He said nonchalantly. Then he looked at Brienn for the first time since they arrived and he frowned. “Where is Cercei?” he asked to Jaime.

So, the Tyrrell guy knew Cercei as well. So, Brienne was the only one who never met her.

“She is…” Jaime was about to say, trying to find an excuse for himself, for her and for Brienne too, but he was soon interrupted.

“And who is this one?” Loras asked quickly, completely forgetting about Cercei and studying Brienne and her inadequacy for his party.

“She is a friend of mine.” Jaime defended her, taking her hand and covering the fist she didn’t notice she was clenching.

Brienne released her fingers and looked at Jaime. His hand was strong and delicate. His long fingers, that she noted when he drived her to the _Manor_ , were closed around hers and they felt so familiar and comfortable, making her at ease. He wasn’t sweaty, shy or possessive. He didn’t hesitate. It was warm, sweet, secure.

“Brienne.” She said, introducing herself and reaching out her hand to him. Loras, confused, reached out his hand too and soon Brienne understood that she was mimicking her father’s gestures, the way he was used to introduce himself to his clients. Which boy or girl reaches out hands? She was demonstrating she was living in his adult world and not her own, proving her father was right after all. She pulled her hand back rashly and closed her fingers so strong that she was hurting her palms.

“All right.” Loras said. He gestured to the guy from the catering to serve them both a beer and left.

Brienne sighed of release and she gave him a sideways look in order to make sure he wouldn’t have spoken of her with his friends. She recognized some faces: Margaery Tyrell, Robb Stark, Renly Baratheon. She met all those people once and Renly was kind to her. Maybe she could trust him enough to stop checking on him. They were all laughing out loud as soon as he reached them. She tried to keep her ears open, but all she could hear was Jaime.

“You are doing great.” he whispered, understanding her mood and uneasiness.

“Nope.” She just responded.

“I don’t like these events too.” Jaime said in simpathy. And maybe he was spelling the truth because as soon as he grabbed his beer, he found a place in a corner, to watch other people getting drunk and laughing happily. “Cercei is always the life of the party.” And again some kind of blue clouds stood on top of him.

“Yeah, I can’t see her.” She said and drank. Too late she thought that even if Cercei was there, she wouldn’t have recognized her.

Jaime watched at Brienne. He gave her an unreadable look and she figured she crossed a line that she wasn’t supposed to even understand it was there. “I don’t own you any explanation.” He said in a repetitive voice, maybe the same he was used to give to Tyrion when he got Cercei involved in any argument.

And still, he never listened to Tyrion. And still, he kept mentioning her with Brienne. He kept talking about her and whatever connected the two of them, as if he wanted to protect their bond or to draw a line. “Why?” she asked. Why protecting Cercei when she obviously didn’t give a damn? Brienne was confused and curious at the same time. “If you can’t talk to Cercei, you can talk to me.” She said, repeating the word he had told her just some days ago about her father.

If you could look at Jaime, you would have seen from his posture, from the way he kept looking at his beer, peeling its label and from how many times he licked his lips, that he was feeling uncomfortable. Since then, he already knew that whatever connected him and Cercei once, when they were kids, it was already gone; that they grew up as different people even at that time and that it would have only gotten worse in the near future. But there was something scary about letting her go, about admitting he was backing on the wrong horse and about being alone. He already knew he wasn’t as strong as Tyrion was. Or maybe he was because he kept believing in her.

“Why isn’t Cercei here with you?” Brienne pressed, once identified his soft point, that wasn’t just Cercei but Cercei’s feelings for him. “Why wasn’t she there this morning?”

Everything he could do was denying. “What you mean?”. After all he always knew that Cercei had her own way to show affection, that she didn’t care about events or occasions, that what meant for real was the time they spent together. She was sweet and caring when they were alone.

“No, sorry, it’s not up to me.” Brienne excused herself, but she had already dropped the ball.

“Oh, don’t be shy now.” He asked, faking curiosity, in an angry voice she never heard, with an evil grin on his face.

The music was still playing from the garden and the pool; boys and girls were yelling happily.

She took her time to think about what to do, speak or not speak, but then her sharp tongue got the best and she couldn’t hold back anymore. “She should know whatever matters to you and be there to support. It’s what relationship are made for.”

“And what do you know about relationships?” he said, but when Brienne held back, he already regretted.

“You are right.” She responded, already looking for the door to leave “I know nothing, just like you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends, how are you?  
> So, I loved so much this chapter. I'm so thrilled!! The story is taking shape not just in my mind, but on pages and I hope you'll like it as I do. In this case, leave me a comment, just to talk about it (or about jaime fucking lannister ahah).  
> I'm just regretting the title and I think one day I'll fix it.   
> Again, I don't know how much time I'll need to write the next chapter, but I'll be back as soon as I can.   
> Thank you for reading and see you soon   
> xoxo


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Two weeks after the party and one before of leaving for his college, Jaime Lannister knocked at Brienne’s door, finding her overprotective and ever-present father who listened at him and let him in so easily. He was expecting to beg him, but he couldn’t complain.

Selwyn Tarth welcomed Jaime Lannister with a big smile on his face. He opened the door in a sunny day of summer, letting an air flow pass from him to the windows of the kitchen. It would have given him a stiff neck, but who cared when he had a _friend_ of Brienne in front of him? Selwyn would have always used the word _friend_ with that particular accent when speaking of him, even in his own head where she couldn’t hear, as if he was pretending that Jaime wasn’t more than a friend for her, but it was too soon to admit it. He was just playing his kid’s same game, he thought, winking to himself.

“I’m sorry, Mr Tarth.” Jaime Lannister was saying. “I’ve been rude. I shouldn’t have let her come back home alone. I should have come here sooner.” The boy kept speaking very fast, but picking his words with extreme accuracy. Selwyn also noticed how composed the boy was. He didn’t move his hands while speaking, just for example.

_Good choice_ , he let himself think. “Oh, kids’ stuff!” he said instead, waving a hand and letting him into the house, to the living room. Selwyn called Brienne, who was upstairs in her room. “You got a visit.” He yelled, hanging to the wooden handrail. “A _friend_ of yours.”

Jaime noticed the intonation he gave to that word, as if he didn’t believe they were just friends, but he pretended to do it. He also understood that they would have always given the same impression to anyone who would have met them. They had even to Tyrion. Jaime was also pretending that he didn’t care, but truth is that he was thinking about Cercei. She must not know.

“Do you want some tea, Jaime?” Selwyn Tarth got him back on hearth. “Cookies? Coffee? A beer?” he proposed, raising up the message, just trying too hard to play the young permissive parent he wasn’t.

“Oh no, thanks.” He said and in that right moment he saw Brienne and got up from the couch, which he didn’t even remember he sat on.

Jaime was speechless, as Selwyn noted. He was just standing looking at his daughter, without even trying to open his mouth. Brienne crossed her arms in front of her. He would have wanted to say to her to not be so hard with him. People make mistakes, as she would have done too. Oh, Selwyn knew her too well to know that she must have said something wrong too.

“I’m here to say sorry.” Jaime said shyly, trying to ignore her father. “I like you and I want you to be my friend.” _Well done_. He was a master of apologies. Cercei’s countless trials trained him very well. Plus, he used the word friend with the right accent, rectifying Selwyn Tarth. 

Brienne sighed and relaxed. She thought about the party night so many times. She thought so much about Jaime, that even then she knew that he meant something more than just a friend to her. “No. It’s my fault.” She said. It was the first of many times she would have said sorry and, as she would have started to think in the future, to humiliate herself. “I should say sorry. I know nothing about you and your girlfriend,” Brienne continued, refusing to pronunce her name. “I shouldn’t make assumptions.” She didn’t know if she was playing a game, making him indulge in his beliefs and hiding him the truth, just to make him happy and staying so in his good graces; or if she was thinking that he was already too much unloved to be kicked out by her too. She would have learnt soon that the path for love was full of humiliation and pity.

At those words Selwyn squeaked like a child. _Oh, poor child! There is another girl._ He would have interfered, hugged her and started to list all Brienne’s best qualities for Jaime’s benefits, but then he looked at the boy. He was playing with his hands, scratching and peeling the skin on his left palm.

Jaime looked up shocked. “Oh.” He just could say. “This is new. I don’t know how to react to apologies.”

Brienne sighed again. She couldn’t stop another little spark of hope that lighted up in her chest. She also looked at him and moved. Poor, unloved Jaime. She had her father at least. He was overprotective, ever-present, but he loved and respected her. How didn’t his girlfriend notice his hunger for kind love? “Maybe just accept them.” She suggested.

Jaime looked at her. “I accept them.” He said reluctantly.

“Good.”

“Good.”

And as if nothing happened, they walked outside on the streets, leaving her father in the living room. They started to talk again about everything. They talked about college, about those new things, that are telephones, but they don’t have wires. Jaime had one of those and he was planning to give another one each to any people who worthed to him and those people were just three: Brienne, Tyrion and, of course, Cercei. It would have taken some times, but he would have made it for sure.

And so they also started to call each other. It was happening on the nights, just after Brienne’s homework and just after Jaime’s day routine.

In the right moment Jaime arrived in his room at the college, he felt the need to create a routine. He inhaled the fresh perfume of a clean room, of the fresh clean sheets, the plywood furniture and it looked so much like his house. He found it annoyingly empty. He wanted that place to be a little his own and so he felt then the immediate need to have Cercei there.

On the first day of college, he called her and she encouraged him to be strong, as she always did. She was his strength after all.

Jaime invited her on a Wednesday night. They tried a pizza from the closest Pizza Hut in the area and they had a beer on a bench. It was the best night he could remember with her. It was new and it tasted of old habits that he was desperately looking for ever since he could remember. And so he had his routine: on each Wednesday, Cercei took a plan from Lannisport to King’s Landing College; she waited two hours to hug Jaime and to stay with him just for one night, to leave again on the days after.

Jaime loved the Wednesday. He wanted that fucking damn routine to involve her in his life once and for all. He wanted to belong to someone else, he wanted to shut up that desperate voice in his head he was calling him from the bottom of a hole. Indeed, Jaime was also realizing that he was filling a hole. He felt the distance, he knew that something was wrong and he didn’t need Brienne to find it out (or to admit it). Something didn’t feel the same anymore. He kept thinking it was the normal process of changing. When you change city, when you grow up, the world mould around you like a doughnut and Jaime was exactly in the middle of process. He justified the hole in the middle with physiological changes of growing up.

On the other hand, Brienne’s life went on as if Jaime never crossed it. She kept studying and studying, holding back everything she wanted to say to her father, reading books, avoiding mirrors and watching television. Just one thing changed and it was her relationship with telephones.

At the beginning of the new school year, Brienne saved some money to buy one, that stayed on the nightstand beside her bed. It had wires and specifically those wires were curly like a pig tail. It was white, with big number buttons and it rang so loudly that it remembered her of the sound of an alarm clock. Curiously, at night, she never found it annoying. She also found herself looking at it, awaiting, more than once.

“He will call.” Her father said on one night.

“I know.” She said, as if she didn’t care at all, as if it wasn’t important after all.

And then he called, as he always did. “Hey there.” His voice greeted her with those two words that he always used.

He seemed so happy and joyful that he was weirding her out. “Hey there.” She replied and they started to talk every time about innocent things, avoiding all those hot topics that could have broken the precarious balance they were walking on, like Cercei and relationships.

“How is school?” he was used to ask every time. “Is Hunt still bothering you?” he said once, even if he already knew it. She wouldn’t have let anybody bothering her.

“How is college?” she surprised him once.

Jaime smiled. Brienne could see his grin through that hell of a device. She could see him closing his eye just for a moment, his teeth shining out and his face lighting up, when she surprised him. She knew he liked her strong will and her explosiveness.

“You have the ball.” Jaime replied, again using the stupid game they did at his house. He needed those tiny stuff and he remembered the moment he has been the closest to a person. He remembered how comfortable he felt, how easily he was speaking that day, how he thought that her eyes could have made him talk about anything he wanted to.

“All right.” She agreed and she opened as if he was in front of her and she wasn’t rolling the pig tail wire up to her finger. “It sucks, as always. I am too smart for those people. Ball.” And she figuratively throwed it to him.

Jaime smiled. “You are.” And she was for real. She was so fucking smart and he almost envied her for it. “I’m not, but I think I’m learning something.”

“Can I learn from you?”

“What do you want to learn? Math?” he asked, sure that math was the subject she liked the most. She never told him, but when he first met her, she said she liked to think and not to memorize names or dates.

“Math is my favourite.” She confirmed, surprised that he remembered it.

“I know.”

Sometimes it happened that her father picked up the phone from the living room and just wanted to say hi. “Hello, Jaime.”

“Dad!” she yelled at him.

The sound of someone hanging up the phone broke into their conversation, just as the joviality of Selwyn Tarth. They stayed in silence for some seconds, just to be sure to not be heard. For some reasons, they both wanted their conversation to be private even if they were just talking about food or school. Both Jaime and Brienne feared that someone could read between the lines of those kind words, forcing them to see the truth they were so determinate to hide.

“It’s sweet to know that someone else’s father likes me.” He said laughing, but he meant it. He would have loved even to be liked by Cercei’s parents as well, but she was very careful to never let him meet them.

“I hate you for this.” She said for no reasons.

“No, you don’t.” He said and she blushed. He knew she did.

Brienne didn’t exactly know to reply. If she said that he was right (and he was), he would have understood that she was falling for him little by little (and she was). If she said he was wrong, it would have been a lie and she didn’t want to lie. “Where were we?” she opted for changing the argument.

“Math. Speaking of which. Come here. You can come to study for real. You can attend some classes, help this stupid one. Do you agree Mr. Tarth?” Jaime asked. He could still hear him breathing in the phone.

“Absolutely.” Selwyn Tarth replied.

“Yes, sure.” She had to say.

***

For the fourth time in her life, Brienne knew she agreed too soon and too happily on a Jaime’s invitation. She found out she was incredibly incapable to refuse him anything, but perfectly able to take a bus, that covered six hundred kilometres in six hours at a travel speed of sixty-five miles per hour, making just one stop at an old gas station, where the bathroom was out of order.

She was acting desperate with him and yet he kept calling for her. She felt like a magnet around him and maybe he did the same.

When she arrived, Jaime was at the bus station, waiting for her. He waved a hand as soon as he saw her throught the window. She carried a gym bag, that she filled with a pair of jeans, some underwear and two t-shirts, long and short sleeves, because she didn’t know what kind of weather she would have found in King’s Landing.

Jaime approached her, he put an arm around her shoulders and shook her. He loved the skin contact, to feel a person close to his body and breath her air, but he never had indulged in such displays of affection with Brienne. It was new and her touch gave him the thrill of breaking the rules.

They were far away from their hometown, his father couldn’t push him to the most appropriate choice that his girlfriend represented, Tyrion’s mood wasn’t a burden to carry, no one judged him just on his sporting successes, he wasn’t grieving whatever broke between him and Cercei and he didn’t need to be the person that everyone wanted or saw. Jaime was feeling transgressive in that occasion, in that place.

He took her bag, even if she said she didn’t need it, like a powerful feminist woman. “I’m just playing the knight in shining armor.” He justified himself, hiding that he was used to that gesture with Cercei. _Forget her_.

“All right.” Brienne agreed, but there was a weird look on her face as if she was digging into his eyes and seeing something that he didn’t want.

They walked to the campus, without taking even a breath. They were talking, joking and laughing and it just gave both some fresh air. When they arrived, Jaime enjoyed the gaze of amazement in her look. Brienne saw so many people walking around, so differently from the little place she was used to. She loved being anonymous in the crowd and she immediately felt that college was made for her. She couldn’t wait to grow up too. The above crowd was also cultured and open minded. Beautiful, ugly, older and younger people, boys or girls, were all chit chatting together. Nobody cared how the other one looked and it made Brienne feel like she could shine and blossom in that place. _Soon_ , she thought. “Wow.” She let her mouth saying, so she cleared her throat and pretended nothing special happened.

Jaime smiled and then suggested to eat something. Their choice went to junk food: hamburger, chips and two cokes that they carried from the fast food to the library, where he got used to study. The table was already full of books, notes and pencils. The wood was scratched and sticky, a lot of people wrote their names digging into it with pens and of course, somebody else ate on it too. It was also completely empty at that hour of the day.

“Your precious math.” Jaime said, letting her study his papers, what he didn’t understand, what was easy or hard for him, saving the exercises he made right for the last show.

Brienne took a blue pen from the table. She looked for a notebook in her bag. It was empty and had a black cover on the front. She started to copy everything she could in a very short time. The numbers were dancing in front of her, complitely forgetting the food.

Jaime admired her ability to solve so many exercises so easily. She was really good and her brain was amazing. He almost forgot how intelligent she was.

They were close. Too close. He could smell her scent. It wasn’t artificial, her flavour wasn’t alcoholic based like the one you can buy in a bottle, like Cercei’s. Jaime thought that she smelled like the sun, like the skin exposed in a summer morning. He found himself awkwardly attracted by it. He looked at her hand, holding a pen, rapidly writing numbers, letters and formulas on her notebook. Her lips were full and inviting while whispering her results and he would have bet that she could kiss as gently as she could take a hand. Her body was warm as if she could irradiate heat. She wasn’t curvy and well equipped, just for saying, but he found out he didn’t care. Weird, because what he liked the most about Cercei was her magnificent body.

“What are you looking at?” Brienne asked as soon as she noted his gaze.

A cute redness appeared on her cheeks. Her freckles disappeared just for a moment. He could have got closer and closer, taken her face, caressed it with his thumb and maybe kissed her. But it was too much and he didn’t know what he was doing, so he decided instead to lower his gaze to something more innocent, like her fast-moving hands. She had the tan line of a rope bracelet on her right wrist. He felt the need to touch it, so with a hesitant finger he brushed that line.

“Jaime?” she asked again and this time it was like falling on the ground and getting hit directly on his nose.

“What?” he said and he looked again at Brienne. What was he doing? The tip of his finger was still touching her, where one million of nerve endings were getting on fire. Maybe he liked Brienne a little bit more than he thought and he missed her. It was far right clear in that moment. He thought about Cercei and he hoped she would have never found out. He felt guilty, as if he was cheating on her.

Cercei was the right person for him. They were made for each other. She knew everything of him and he couldn’t lose time to let someone else know him again. She saw him in his worst moment, she lulled him like a child when he needed. She knew how evil he could get. He knew how evil she could. He saw and touched every spot on her skin. His father approved her. Tyrion would have got used and everything would have been all right.

But…

But something was wrong. Jaime didn’t even know what part of it, but deep down he felt that something wasn’t right.

But what if he was the one to be wrong? What if his new life, the approaching adulthood and the missing of a friend were getting him the wrong end of a stick?

“You know,” he started all at once, abruptly interrupting her, deciding that he was wrong, that he needed to be wrong as he had always been, as everybody always told him. _The stupidest of Lannister_. “I don’t like this imitation of a friendship in which I can’t talk to you about whatever crosses my mind.” He needed to remind her that she was just his friend and nothing more. He needed to hear those words from his own voice and suppress that transgressive part of him who would have just played with both his and her feelings.

Brienne took a deep breath. She feared what would have come next. Was he about to talk of Cercei or to talk of her impossible to hide need to see him? “Like what?”

“Like my girlfriend. You know she exists.”

_Here we go_. Brienne took a deep breath and hoped that it didn’t make clear what she was feeling. “You can tell me whatever you want, even about her. More than everything about her.” She said and it was true. She cared about their friendship and about that coziness she felt that day at the _Manor_ and she should have abandoned those childish dreams that she was making.

He seemed to think about it, first studying her face, as if he was trying to understand if she meant what she said, then picking accurately what to say. “She doesn’t want me to keep my socks on!” he confessed outraged. He knew he should have taken the argument away, he shouldn’t have talked about her (or about it) with Brienne, but truth is he had two reasons to keep doing it: one, he wanted her to see Cercei as the good person he knew she was; two, he needed to draw a line. He felt something for Brienne. Why deny it? It’s just... It wasn’t the same thing he felt for Cercei. And more important, Brienne felt something for him too. He didn’t want to keep her away from his life and he couldn’t let her be this close, so he needed to draw a line and let her know that he was taken.

“No way!” Brienne pretended to be shocked instead of disinterested. She let the pen roll on her papers and then she stole one of his chips, from the basket next to him. She loved the ones with the crispy edges that he would have learnt to leave for her. She started to eat to hide the discomfort that her feelings were causing her, but Jaime wasn’t of the same advice. He caught her hand in the process and his touch burned her skin. The chips fell on the table and she stayed there, shocked, looking at him.

That was something climaxing in that moment. Jaime felt on the peak of a mountain, at the edge of an abyss. He knew that he needed just another step and there would have been no coming back. Something would have broken with Brienne and it would have needed years to fix up, changing everything for ever. He could have squeezed her hand or he could have got back to the thought of Cercei and then lived how he was supposed to. Brienne was right after the pit, waiting, smiling, open-armed. Cercei was calling him back, furiously yelling to not waste their time. She was crying and he couldn’t let her cry.

Guilty, ashamed, he came back.

Jaime let her arm. “I would believe you if you weren’t eating.” He whispered. He was hoping someone would have slapped him to refrain his attention back on hearth. He thought he would have even cried.

“Sorry, it’s really challenging to empathize with you.” Brienne said, lightly. “All right. Shoot. What were you saying?” she asked “the socks thing” and she said waving her hand in his direction.

Oh, she was so good to pretend she didn’t notice.

He watched her slapping her hands to clean them from oil and crumbs. How couldn’t she have noticed his interior conflict? “Hm.” He tried to collect his thoughts “Adherence. I need adherence.”

“What?”

“Yeah, for sex, you know.” Jaime mumbled and in the right moment the words got out of his mouth, he knew that everything he was looking at was broken. He stared at her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. They caught his own for a brief moment. She knew. He knew that she did. “All right.” He said, maybe to himself, just to obtain an agreement from her. “Come on, your turn. Talk to me about you. Do you like someone?” He thought that he would have felt better if there was someone else in her life too, but he found himself waiting for an answer.

“No.”

_Thank Gods, yes._ “I can’t believe it.” He said. He couldn’t believe instead at anything he said. The entire conversation was ridiculous, muddle-headed. A loosely related trail of arguments, that were crowding his head. Nothing that he said made sense. He spoke, as always, everything that crossed his mind, without taking a moment to think about it. Even James Joyce’s Ulysses was more shipshape than their ongoing conversation.

“Why?”

“That guy on the party.”

“Who?”

“The Baratheon one.”

“Renly was just a friend when we were both children.” She said and she looked upset, maybe because of her soft spot uncovered or maybe because he was acting like an ass.

“So you do know who I’m talking about.”

Obviously, she knew. Renly was the only one she knew at that damn party. “He was just a friend.” She decided to say instead, feeling also incredibly surprised by his new interest in her personal life.

“We are friend” he said, launching the bomb “and you don’t look at me as you looked at him.” _Here, Jaime. This is how you work. You killed everything that could have made you happy. Cercei is right: you are bad made, broken, just like her._ At least he knew he didn’t lie, he saw something that night that pushed a button and he felt really jealous for the first time in his life. Brienne looked at Renly Baratheon and he thought that she was waiting for him to look back. If he knew her a little, in the moment the guy would have approached, she would have been goofy and social cripple and Jaime didn’t want to see it. He thought that reactions of her were so sweet and they tasted of innocence. He wanted her blushes all for him. _Like the dick you are._ And yet, Cercei was still there in his mind.

“Stop.” She protested. Brienne looked down at the numbers and she was expecting for them to start to look blurry because of her tears.

“Come on, I’m not judging you.”

“I’m judging you.” She said, too aloud for that place. “Stop, please.” She whispered then.

“Is it supposed to be like this every time with you?” and he didn’t even understand what he was saying, what he was doing. He just knew that Tyrion was right that day.

“Like what?”

“I don’t want to fight.” Jaime said. What was wrong with him? Why was he making her cry? _You know you was wrong._ “Friends again?” he asked and he reached out his right little finger like a kid.

Brienne looked at him and she lost in her thoughts. She knew that sooner or later he would have felt the need to name what they had. She knew that he would have used the word _friends_ as soon as he could, that he was a good guy who would have never indulged in such a relationship with anyone who wasn’t his Cercei. And who was she fooling? He was beautiful, rich and smart. How could he be interested in her? She looked at her big and freckled fingers. He would have never liked her, not in the way she wanted. And who is so fool to choose a teenaged love, labeled with an expiration date, rather than a forever friendship?

“Yes, come on, tell me the reason because you can’t do math.” She said, ignoring his childish pinky that was asking forgiveness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again.  
> I think I'm waisting my life in angst ahah just kidding. I had to put black on white Jaime's feelings for Brienne at the beginning of the story, so to be able to expain how they changed. I wanted them to be confusionary, so the reader can dive in his mind. Also the conversation they had in the last pages of this chapter needed to be confusionary too in my opinion. I had to keep Jaime IC and image how he would have been in a mordern setting and growing up with doubts. Remember the last season? "Do you want me to insult you?" well, a babbling, as the following conversations in the season.  
> I think I said what I said to justify myself in Jaime's behalf ahah  
> This chapter meant a lot to me. It took me a lot of efforts to write it and I hope you can notice it and enjoy it of course.  
> So, folks. It's moment to go on. I'll update soon, hopefully on the next week. A big hug and a kiss to you all. And stay safe at home!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

If you could ask to an older Brienne, which one was the best period in her life, she would reply it was right before of her graduation. She won a scholarship for college because of her academic merit. Her father let her be for some weeks. Her teachers were also thinking to get out the best from her, maybe to feel that self-gratification they were craving. She also met another girl, who was as smart as she was, thanks to a cross-cultural exchange programme. Her name was Sansa Stark. She was from the far North and they would have ended up together in the same college. Sansa even promised she would have pressed whoever was in charge for it to let them live in the same room.

To make the things even better, Jaime knocked on one night at her back door. He called her first at the phone. He just asked her if she was at home and then to go downstairs in the kitchen and just to open door, without making any questions. But even if he just said, he started to knock desperately.

“What the hell?” Brienne complained. “Jaime?” she said, even if she knew it was him.

He looked terrible and unrecognizable. Just his face and nothing else was so wet that she asked herself if it was because of water or sweat. Later he would have told her the story of the glass of wine, which would have explained the smell too.

“She cheated on me.” He began abruptly. He didn’t even greet her properly.

She understood immediately. They didn’t meet since the last Easter holiday at home and it felt like time never passed. It was the same every time actually. They got used to meet on holidays. When he came back, he always took his time to go to her place and speak about politics, teas and biscuits, about discrimination and human rights. “What?” she asked, shocked for once “Who is the other one?” Brienne suppressed the need to say she told that so.

“I don’t know?” he said or asked. Gods, he was so confused. He just knew she found out she was getting some weird phone calls that she didn’t want to take when they were together and that was how it all started. Honestly speaking, he was even expecting it, almost waiting for it.

He felt so bad.

Brienne was still in front of the door, preventing the passage to the couch. He just wanted to lie down and wake up not soon than two days. “Can I come in?” he asked, more like a suggestion than a proper question.

“Sure.”

Jaime fell on the couch in the living room. His elbow was on the cushion on the back, giving room to his head to rest and to hide his eyes. He would have cried if he wasn’t still shocked. He guessed that tears would have come on the day after. “Please, say nothing mean.” He said.

Jaime turned to look for Brienne, who was coming from the half-bath, holding a towel that she tossed on his hair. “I would never.” She replied as she sat next to him, sinking in the pillows. She had her new mobile phone in the back pocket of her jeans, where it began to buzz.

Jaime heard the noise, but he didn’t pay attention. He intentionally decided to ignore rings, messages and emails, that had already ruined his life. “What have I done to deserve you?” he decided to joke instead, suppressing the urge to toss the damn device out of the window.

“Nothing. That’s the point.” She said with a smirk. Maybe it was the first time a joke slipped out of her mouth and he looked disappointed, turning her off. “Justi kidding.” She apologized, feeling so indelicate in that moment “I can do it too, you know.” She added, tapping his tight with her left foot.

He turned to look at her and chuckled. “I wasn’t aware.” He just said. His smile was so fake, there was even no sense in pointing it out.

Her phone buzzed again. This time it was short and clear, like an income message. Jaime saw Brienne looking out of the corner of her eye. She was undecided, take it or not take it. Jaime saw the moment she chose to let it ring or maybe he was just getting mad with phones and calls and whatever.

“Who’s there?” he couldn’t fail to ask, his voice just a little higher than the usual, betraying his anxiety and new attitude towards phones.

Brienne waved a hand. “I think it’s just Sansa.”

“Who?” he asked and it was almost an accusation considering his voice.

Brienne sighed shocked “A friend, jackass.”

_No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to go that way._ He thought. “Sorry,” he said then, knowing that it would have worked with Brienne “I didn’t know you…” he tried, but soon he understood he made a poor choice of words.

She took a deep breath and tried to remember he was upset and out of phase. “So gentle of you.” she just replied.

“That’s not what I meant.” He tried again, even if it wasn’t true, because he really believed she wasn’t capable of making friends beside of himself. The truth just slipped out of his mouth in the wrong time. “Sorry again.” He said for the second time in that night and it was real at least. He knew she always excused him, not matter how bad he behaved. That was the best part of their relationship: Brienne’s complete devotion to Jaime.

“Yeah, don’t worry.” She said as her feature relaxed “Wait here, I’ll tell my father you are sleeping here, so he won’t have a hearth attack when he’ll see you on tomorrow morning.”

“I think he would make compliments to you.” He said, playing again the card of her father loving him.

Brienne looked back at him. A sad smirk was stuck on his face. His face and his emotions were completely dissociated, trying to hide the tears that sooner or later would have knocked at his door. She sighed, considering how he could feel in that moment. She decided to keep running the string out. “You are not that appealing as you may think right now.” She said and she gestured at his sticky head, his dirty shirt and his too long hair that definitely needed a cut.

Jaime smiled. She was exactly what he needed in that moment. He should have remembered to thank her more often. She looked at her going upstairs and leaving him. He tried to keep an ear to her opening the door of her father’s bedroom, whispering in low voice, until the phone that she left on the little table in front of him rang again, catching his attention.

It was because of some rings that he ignored that he was in that situation. And not because of Cercei, of course. Should he trust Brienne and ignore it (again)? Before he completed to follow his train of thoughts, his hands were already at her phone. It was an old cheap model. The screen was still black and yellow, the antenna popped out from an angle and it was so big that he had to hold it with both his hands. The screen turned on, enlightening his face. There was an unread message and a name “Sansa”.

Just Sansa.

Something itched on his chest. Was he jealous of this just-Sansa? She was just a friend of Brienne. So what the hell was wrong?

_Why is he there?_ – the first message said and it was from her. They must have been texting when he popped up at her door and moreover, Sansa must have known who he was. Rationally he knew that he was Brienne’s friend and Sansa was too, so it was perfectly normal they knew about each other’s existence. If not that he found out of hers just on that night, never heard her name before.

_His girlfriend cheated on him._ – Brienne emptily explained. And Jaime found out it annoyed him too, maybe a tiny part of him expected her to be happy about his unexpected freedom. 

_And what are you? His second choice?_ – What a firecracker Sansa was! It was like she was reading in his mind.

_I’m his friend. It’s okay._ – Brienne had to justify herself.

_If you say so. –_ Yes, take that, just-Sansa!

He had just the time to finish reading when Brienne came back with a blanket in her hands. It was woollen, tartan, cheap, warm and weirdly comfortable. Nothing he could find in his father’s wardrobe.

“You can stay.” She announced happily, as if she was hoping it too.

Jaime smiled, feeling her mood. He was happy too in a weird way, sad and happy at the same time. He looked down at his hands and found himself still holding her phone. It was stupid to have doubted of her. Brienne wasn’t Cercei, she didn’t deserve him spying her phone, as if there was something wrong to have another friend. “You got a message.” He decided to say then. She frowned, grabbing the device and looking at it, not finding anything new or unread. “I read it, I’m sorry.” A glint of fear appeared in her eyes and he understood that he had to lie “It was a mistake, I just read her name. Sorry, I trust you, I just…”

“Don’t worry.” She cut him and smiled reassuring him. 

“Brienne?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry for my behavior tonight and I’m truly grateful to you. I’m glade to have you as my friend.”

Those two phrases got a double effect on Brienne. On the outside, she softened to those words and smiled to him again, moved by his speech. On the inside, an old cut started to bleed again in her chest. It felt like a knife stabbing her directly into her heart. She felt like she was lying to him, like she was hiding something, but despite this feeling she also knew she couldn’t say the truth.

She forced her face in the best smile she could, persuading herself she was also feeling that heat and the pure satisfaction to be _just_ his friend.

_Just his friend._

“Good night.” She said as she was leaving him in the living room. She fell asleep thinking about that word.

_Just._

***

For two months Jaime stayed at the Tarth house. Despite his first impulse to name it “pie”, because of her surname sounding like a dessert, it remained just “home” for the both of them, as if they both lived there with Selwyn. He might have a thing for nicknames. He stayed at her place so long that even Selwyn Tarth had to ask to his daughter once. “How long will Jaime stay with us, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, how long, sweetheart?” Jaime mimicked, receiving then a slap on the back of his head.

“You tell me, Lannister.” She said then.

“Sorry, mr Tarth.” Jaime replied to him, being the politest that he could “I’m leaving tomorrow, I don’t want to be of any trouble.”

“What trouble? I’m glad to have another man in this house.” Selwyn said with a hand on Jaime’s shoulder and he looked glad for real. He thought that they could have had a beer together or anything else he couldn’t do with his daughter.

“I think you are here just for my father.” Brienne whispered, once he was gone.

“I think you are right.” He whispered back when Selwyn came back from the kitchen holding a plate full of pancakes.

Speaking about him, Jaime thought that as the days passed Brienne’s father would have pushed him in the arm of his daughter, now that he was free. Instead Jaime found in Selwyn a proper father figure. On the first day of his time with them, Selwyn asked him what happened. They analysed together the whole situation and found out that Cercei was still emotionally a child. She didn’t grow the ability to feel and to respect love. She was still a child in her heart and Jaime could have waited her to wake and grow up, not knowing how long the process would have lasted. Or he could go on and accept that some souls are good for each other for sometimes, but time can change everything and people too, making bad the same one who was good for you once.

Selwyn told Jaime how he felt when he met Brienne’s mother. It was the first time he talked about her as a woman and Jaime tried to remember everything to tell Brienne as soon as she would have come back from school.

Selwyn said that the best thing about that wonderful woman was that he didn’t need to hold on. She made him feel at his ease from the first moment his eyes landed on hers. She had a pure and wild laugh, she embraced life in every form, she was eager to love and to be loved. She was vain and she wore her red lipstick even when they slept together in the same bed for the first time after their wedding. Selwyn explained that she was afraid of him not liking her anymore without it. That night he wiped it with his finger and she smiled.

Curiously, while the man was speaking, Jaime never thought about Cercei, but about his friend. She was the opposite of her mother: short masculine hair, scared of enjoying life too much, controlling everything. Maybe Jaime himself was more like Brienne’s mother than Brienne herself. She was much more like her father instead. And that would have explained the several arguments they had on a daily basis.

Jaime felt the need to wipe a red lipstick with a finger, telling his woman that he never met someone more beautiful and smarter. He wanted that kind of relationship. _But Brienne would never wear a lipstick_ , he found himself thinking.

***

They got used to have dinner all together. Every night they all talked about politic elections, about the influence that the Easter Lands had on the continent in the last centuries, about the new laws against sexual assaults, about banks and the currency devaluation. They were special and on that occasions Jaime remembered of the long talks he had when he first met Brienne and he finally understood where they came from. He felt encouraged, inspired and considered. Finally, someone cared about his opinion.

Just right dinner instead, he spent his time with Brienne. They liked to conclude a debate; to watch an horror movie, teasing all the characters; to wash the dishes to thank Selwyn for the good food or sometimes they just liked to play with a ball in the garden, where a basket was built in front of her garage. They got even closer than they had always been. So close that she could bear his touches during the game and not only. They even talked about the future once.

“What do you want to do now?” she asked, tossing a ball in the basket.

“I think I have no choice.” He replied, accepting his fate “I’ll rot in my father’s company for the eternity.” And he grabbed the ball and threw it, missing his target. “Damn.”

“You can do whatever you want.” She said and tried another shot, that rolled on the ring before of falling out.

_Cercei never said it_ , Jaime just considered. “What do you want to do?” and he throwed the ball again and again after.

“I think I’ll be a lawyer, for women rights.”

It was then that Jaime stopped, in order to look at her. She wasn’t exactly the ideal strong woman that the cause would have needed, or free from any scheme the society wrote for women. She was the opposite of that obvious scheme and maybe this was a scheme too. But wasn’t that the reason because she was a good choice? “It suits you.” He thought then and he was honest and would have supported her for ever “I think I should give the devil a chance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.” He just said.

“You speak of it as if it’s the end of your life.”

“It is.”

“Then do something else.” She pushed him as she was holding the ball, forcing him to look at her and hear what she just said.

“It’s not that easy, okay?” Jaime replied in high voice, almost yelling. Her wilfulness had always been a trouble for him. She didn’t understand that he didn’t have the same chance of chooses that she had. His father wasn’t sympathetic as her own. His life was already written since he was born and even before. It was just a miracle that the devil didn’t have called him since his breakup with Cercei.

Jaime knew that Brienne was just trying to help; that even if her spirit was so distant from her father’s, she had Selwyn’s same heart and she was just trying to opening his doors to make him look forward. Jaime knew that Brienne always saw his life limited by his father and by his former fiancée. Maybe she even saw the desires that he couldn’t recognise, that he hadn’t the chance to think about. He also knew that she was just preparing him for the sense of being lost that was waiting for him as soon as that mock of a holyday was over. And also maybe that feeling would have been the reason behind his outburst of rage.

“Sorry.” She heard him saying, before of leaving, while the sound of ball bouncing filled the night.

***

Fights were just ordinary as peace was too. Both of them were fleeting, as if they couldn’t stay angry at each other, or worse, as if they couldn’t agree with each other every time. Selwyn used the word _unstable_ to speak about them once, but just in front of them. What he really meant was _alive_. 

Their fights had always a sort of script, even if the scenario was always different. Indeed, they all started from Brienne’s weakness for truth. She loved the truth so much, that even she thought to feel more powerful or mature than Jaime, just because of her ability to accept reality, even if it was the saddest that she could think about. On the other hand, Jaime hated the truth. He preferred to postpone the moment he should have faced it. And also, he didn’t want to fight, or at least that was the way he wanted it to appear, maybe out of habit, because as he yelled, his eyes glowed, just as Brienne’s. Anyway, the fights always ended thanks to him. Most of the times Brienne thought that Jaime had learned the art of submission from the many years of training at Twyn Lannister’s academy. How startling for her.

“I’m sorry.” He was used to say.

“About what?” she was used to ask, as if the comprehension of their incomprehension meant more to Brienne than his excuse itself.

There was something else Brienne noted in those two beautiful months. She was thinking about him more and more, even if they were basically living together. Also her behaviour around him changed too. She felt happier, more spontaneous and playful, as if finally her true form was out to shine. She had the head full of crazy ideas, like going to swim or cutting his hair.

“Do you want a pancake?” she asked instead once, out of nowhere. It was midnight and they were both in her room. She was reading a book, while he was looking at the black cracks in the ceiling, resting his head on her legs. She felt so special to have him there in that position.

“A pancake?” he repeated, so sure he didn’t hear it right.

“Yes, why not?”

“Because it’s midnight and you have school tomorrow.”

“You are such a prude.”

“Me?” he asked shocked and surprised. His eyes were laughing along with his mouth. He was beautiful and perfect. He was everything she wasn’t: natural, joyful and impulsive. She thought that she liked him so much just because of it. He was childish, he could enjoy literally every situation he found himself in. He could love with all his heart. He could give himself totally, spontaneously, naturally, as if it didn’t cause him any trouble. Being so close to him would have forced her to be the same one day. She was secretly hoping he would have made her the same and maybe this was already happening. He was making her a better person. He was her opposite and she found herself indulge on one old cliche: the heart wants what the heart wants. And then she found out that she loved him, right on that bed with him pointing at his chest, filled in disbeliefs.

“Yeah.”. Brienne just said.

“I challenge you to have a coffee instead and stay up with me all night long. Don’t you dare to make it decaffeinated.”

That made Brienne laugh out loud, so hard that she needed to cover her mouth with both her hands to not make enough noise to make her dad wake up. Jaime laughed too and he was contagious. Just as she thought she could stop, Jaime’s face made her fall again.

It’s amazing how you need just an instant to consider all your life and understand. She was in love with Jaime Lannister. So crazily. That explained everything: her bond to him; why she was so compliant with him; the way she run to him every time he calls; the heartbeat that was suggesting it to her very sooner. She was in love with him and Brienne understood it in that right moment. She felt the need to cry (joy? Sorrow?) there, in front of him while laughing. Maybe she did and she pretended to not notice.

“Do you accept?” he asked.

“What?” she said, lost in her thoughts.

On the day after, Selwyn found them sleeping on the couch. Hand in hand, two empty and dirty plates on the coffee table and the TV on. He couldn’t decide if turning it off was a good move. His heart was softening. _Oh, my child!_ He just walked back in light steps to the kitchen, where he would have made a coffee to fill the air with its aroma.

***

That magical period ended when Jaime himself put an end on it. As the time passed, they both were waiting for it. It’s natural: everything ends sooner or later. He would have come back to King’s Landing for the upcoming semester and she would have had to study more to graduate. Or at least, this was what she was waiting for.

Jaime’s expectations were not that kind. When the phone rang, Jaime already knew and it broke him in pieces anyway. Again, Brienne was much more able to accept the truth. At least he hoped it. He waited for her to come back from school in her own living room, two days before of the Christmas holidays.

“You are late. And you look terrible.” He said, pointing at the rain in her hair. Being rude was his way to force her and himself to accept what was about to come.

“You too.” She said, speaking of his face.

“I got a phone call.”

Brienne didn’t need to ask from who. She sighed and she felt pity and a bleeding wound. He was ready to leave, she could tell from his face. He just got back with Cercei and he had that face on. How long are you going to suffer for her, Jaime? She was almost going to ask, but she made a promise long ago. She wouldn’t have interfered. She knew they would have never been good, but she couldn’t speak a word about it. She should have had just to wait… And then what?

It hurted. It hurted all over again.

Brienne crossed her arms ready to listen to him.

“Cercei begged me to forgive her. She just got scared of the commitments that our parents are pushing us at. I should have understood how she was feeling. It’s on me.”

“What?” Brienne asked and she was angry now, angry with Cercei. Did she put an affair that she had on Jaime’s shoulders?

“Don’t look at me like that. She is not that bad.” He was pleading. And suffering. And crying. You are not supposed to cry because you are coming back with the person you love. Why was he crying? Why couldn’t he see?

“I didn’t even think of it.” Brienne said, justyfing Cercei herself. If it wasn’t enough, her spider’s webs were wrapping the both of them in just one call “I just want you to be happy.”

“I think I will be.” He said and they stayed like that for a while “You know, we are made for each other. We were born on the same day.” He tried to convince her or both.

“Your birthdays don’t make you two soul mates.”

“I know. It’s more than that.”

“Okay.” She said and she understood. For once, she wanted really to believe that he was making the right call, that she would have let him go and she would have chosen friendship over love. She wanted to believe that she was not in love with Jaime Lannister. Otherwise that itch that she was feeling could have just scratched away. Otherwise it wouldn’t have got bigger and bigger till it would have eaten her alive.

Some hours after he thanked Selwyn Tarth for his hospitality, he said good-bye taking his hand even if he felt he didn’t measure up and then he hugged Brienne.

Her tears were just there, ready to fall as soon as Jaime turned his back to her. Brienne must have lost the control over one of them, that trailed a path on her check. Jaime saw it and wiped it away with his thumb.

He didn’t want it to be like this. He didn’t want to caress her in that way. He imaged them in a bed and… He closed his eyes and Brienne was so sure that she saw some watery in his look. “See you at King’s Landing.” He said instead, ignoring both crying, ignoring Selwyn Tarth who was just looking at his children’s breaks.

“See you there.” She replied. Her eyes were still closed, till she decided that her pride was worthing less than the last image of Jaime. So she opened them and saw his sad smile and then his back and his car finally leaving.

Brienne stayed there, fists closed, heartbroken, wanting to fall on the porch on her knees.

Her father never left and stayed just next to her, as if he was feeling the same, as if he knew. Brienne turned to spy him in the corner of her eyes. He actually did, he knew. “A chocolate?” he asked.

“Thank you, dad.”

“You are going to be all right.”

***

When college opened its door to Brienne too, she hoped in some fresh air.

She graduated surrounded of people she didn’t care about. She walked for too long on streets that made her feel burdened and overwhelmed. She became obsessed by her phone: she kept watching at it and waiting for some new phone calls or texts. Jaime called her daily on January. Then he texted every day on February. Their contact became occasional on March. They were still on touch, even till the end of Summer, but it was far right clear that something was changed. Brienne felt constantly on the edge of crying when April came.

The city, that she barely bore from the beginning, became insufferable. The act with her father, started again: he made the same questions every day, ignoring her pain, her cries, ignoring the obvious void he left in her life. Selwyn Tarth didn’t even bother to hide Jaime’s teacup on some shelf. It was like he was been just erased from their life and everything got back to sad normalcy. It was clear now that she and her father couldn’t achieve a balance together. There was something missing, a place that needed to be filled between them.

Days became empty, an old ache replaced the bittersweet heartbeat that she felt when he was in her house, and she had the sensation she would have never been whole again.

She was incomplete. The void was already eating her alive, piece by piece, devouring everything good she had in herself, even her school attitudes. Fortunately, she could count on her diligence that distinguished her for so long to graduate with the highest grades.

Summer, instead, became full of hope.

When Sansa said to her that they would have been together once and for all in King’s Landing, Brienne couldn’t believe it. She felt relieved, because she knew. Sansa knew the whole story, she didn’t have to pretend to be okay, as she did with her father since the second day after Jaime’s departure. She could be sad and once in a while cry or laugh. She was so happy to see her in that clean, white and empty college room that she wanted to run and hug her, the only friendly presence in her life, the only one person who understood her, occupying the place that was Jaime’s once.

“Hello, friend!” Sansa said. Her cheekbones rose in a big bright smile, her happiness was so contagious that they met halfway and hugged. She was almost as tall as Brienne was, saving the both of them from the embarrassment they normally felt with shorter people. Just that though made her feel better and relieved. “This is going to be amazing years. I promise.” She added so reassuring and caressed her friend’s cheek.

***

_Are you here?_ – Jaime texted.

_Yes._ – She just said some seconds later. Waiting for her had always lasted seconds, never more. He could always count on her. She was his safe haven. For some ways he cared of her more than his own family. And yet, her answers became shorter and shorted. At each missing syllable of her, Jaime felt a knot tightening in his chest, till it became hard to swallow, confusing him.

Jaime didn’t lose anymore time. He left the enormous amount of papers that his father wanted him to read and rode his car to college’s dorms. He bought a framed print that he would have hanged up on her walls, remembering how blank and clear the rooms looked when he first got there. It was a perfect Starry Night replica, that he felt pretty proud of.

Jaime climbed stairs, trying to manage with the smile that appeared on his face. It was weird how he felt when he knew that Brienne was around and how he did when he knew she was far away. Suddenly he thought that she would have been close for many years during her college adventure. And what about Cercei?

He found her door opened. A girl was woo-wooing in her room. Another one was cheering and someone was laughing. How many people were in there? Wrong room? Just another turn to the right and he would have found out.

“Look who finally made it!” Jaime said, as soon as he walked into her new home.

“Oh,” the squeals stopped all sudden. “You are the pretty boy.” A red-haired girl said. Her voice was full of despise. She wasn’t even pretending to be ironic.

Brienne was on a bed, legs up. It was the first time he saw her since that time he left her house. She was almost in a corner, in a defensive stance, while the red girl was crossing her arms, waiting for an answer. “Ah. Is that what she said?” he asked. Someone who didn’t know Jaime better enough would have said that he was trying to charm the girl with a humoristic line. In truth, he wasn’t even caring. There was something in Brienne that he didn’t recognise.

“She used the word friend.” The girl continued “I said pretty to not insult you by saying jackass.”

Ah, Sansa. Who else? He remembered her messages to Brienne on the night he run to her. He remembered the way he felt when he first found out that Brienne had another friend. Or better, just a real one. “Oh. I get now why she likes you, witch.”

And then the miracle happened. Brienne got up from that bed, smiled and the morning sunlight caught perfectly the pink colour of her full lips, the pale blond of her hair and the bright light blue of her eyes. “Hi, Jaime.” She said and she was the girl he knew again, not a name on his phone.

“You are here!” he said as if he couldn’t believe. And he hugged her. Who cared about Cercei? Who cared if she saw him hugging his dearest friend?

And then again. That word. It felt almost right and correct when he first heard it when they were both teenagers; then it felt like a shelter while growing up. In her arms, it felt just wrong. A friend, like Sansa was, would have noticed they weren’t just friends. A friend would have noticed that he knew they weren’t, that he was hurting her on purpose, that he was too much of a coward to admit it in front of anybody, even himself. A friend, like Sansa, would have perceived the difference between herself and Jaime.

That was the truth. That was why Jaime couldn’t bear the idea that Brienne had a true friend, why he couldn’t meet her. He couldn’t prove Sansa was wrong. He couldn’t prove he wasn’t feeling something for his friend and hurting her at the same time, like a true dick.

Sansa was right. That was the truth.

And she knew that he knew it too. 

Maybe he should have left her living her life without him, he should have set her free, just like he tried to do in the past months. He should have let her find another good guy to be happy with. But he couldn’t. And he was too much of coward again to let her go and to let her stay too, lulling himself in this midway dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, I'm back!  
> I'm sorry for the late. Quarantine is over and I'm fully back to work.   
> Anyway, I wrote a big part of every single chapter, so I know how many are left ahead and everything *___*  
> So this one was kind of foundamental for the story, I just wanted to make it right, that's why it took me so much time.   
> Let me know what you think about. Hope you'll like it and see you soon, guys!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Brienne was used to spend holydays at her father’s house. Twice a year, Jaime was used to follow her, justifying his presence to her with Selwyn’s affection for him. It was actually true. Indeed, twice a year, Selwyn Tarth was used to call Jaime and to invite him in his house, just to remember the old times.

Brienne’s father noticed a lot of years before how his daughter’s eyes glimmered in Jaime’s presence. He liked it. He liked to think that she was in love. And also he saw the same glimmering in the boy’s look. Well, in the man’s look. He was so sure that sooner or later…

Years went by without an accident for Brienne. Life was going on between classes, a poor work in a library and all the parties that Sansa dragged her to. It was at one of those parties that Brienne had a really bad idea when an old friend recognised her and Sansa’s disagreement just convinced her to go after it. 

“You know, I was thinking about...” she wasn’t sure that she should have talked with Jaime about that or about anything that involved Sansa. Long ago, she decided to leave her name out of their conversation. “I should date someone.” She finally got out and it was a really bad idea, Brienne knew for herself. She didn’t even want to do it or why she accepted.

Brienne was twenty-three years old now, she graduated at King’s Landing’s college one year before and she passed the Law School Admission Test in the same city with the highest vote. Her dad was so proud of her that he decided to save some money to buy her a house, that she could have used in the future.

“I’m this close!” he said, showing her a tiny space between his thumb and a finger. “You are going to choose it by yourself.” He added in one of the many holydays that Brienne had at her family house. What Selwyn Tarth wanted to give to his daughter was an opportunity to grow up. He knew how adult she could be, but he thought that she needed to prove it to the world (and herself). Giving her that giant amount of money would have made her feel the weight of his sacrifices, so to push her to make the best choice. He was just that close. “One more year, honey, one more.”

“Don’t rush.” She told him once, leaving a tender kiss on Selwyn’s cheek.

When her father introduced her to the project for the first time, Brienne didn’t know how to feel. She decided to postpone a decision in the future when he would have got the money. Sadly, it happened sooner that she believed, urging her to give a not so generic reply anymore.

Her father trusted her with his money. _All right, what now?_

She was the old reliable Brienne, as Jaime was used to say, but there was also something new in her. She got easily tired and bored by that definition of herself. Watching Sansa having light-hearted fun and Jaime not caring about her while building his new life at his family company and with Cercei, made her crave for freedom. What if she made some horrible decision? Was she capable of it? What if she lived her life walking on the strict and right path for all her life, without even taking a detour on the highway?

She just wanted to be imprudent for once, to live for once and get free from Jaime’s influence for once or to prove to herself that she could have lived even if she loved him and he didn’t. That chance became real when Brienne heard a voice calling for her at King’s Landing at a party.

“My old reliable friend!” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder and watching at her as if he made a compliment. She knew from the look on his face that he didn’t believe to what she just said. He thought that she was kidding.

“You know, I got a date.” She said then. Her intentions were to surprise him, to make him swallow those words back. To not make him feel her as his personal property. She could hear Sansa’s applauses in her head.

“A date?” he repeated. His arm fell and he studied her, looking for some signs telling him that she wasn’t saying the truth. Her eyes were clear and she was blushing just a little, as if she was letting him in on a little secret. Something broke inside of him: his hearth pumped fast and his head vibrated confused. His mouth went dry, but saliva was stuck in his throat and his hands were about to shake.

“Well,” Brienne prepared to explain “someone invited me.” She told him as her face reddened more and more.

“Who?”

“Hyle Hunt.”

“Hunt?” Jaime asked shattered “Why?” A noose was wrapping his neck, remembering the first time he met Brienne. He could feel the knot tightening around it, leaving its mark in his flesh as a signature of his hurt feelings. He felt difficult to swallow more and more. His voice went high as if he was trying to get free by using it as a weapon.

Brienne tried to think about it. Basically, he was the only one who ever invited her for a dinner. She wanted to be stupid for once, to try what everyone craves. So why not? She had no kind of obligations after all. “He looks... changed.”

When she met Hyle Hunt, he was with a bunch of friends on a table. She saw him in the right moment that she got in the bar area to have a drink with her friend, but she decided to ignore. Just as she was about to leave, he materialized in front of her. He stayed put waiting for Brienne saying something, while his friends watched and waited. Brienne remembered all the mean nick names that he gave her and just while she was listing all of them in her mind, he said that he was sorry and pleaded for her forgiveness. Not even Jaime ever pleaded in that way. His eyes were sincere. So why not? At least, that was what Sansa thought.

“People don’t change.” Jaime said, upset.

“You changed.”

“How have I changed?” His mind flew to Cercei, the only thing that never changed in his life. His fix point. Suddenly not changing assumed a new wrong prospective.

“You were an ass.” Brienne simply said and her voice never changed.

Jaime looked for the devotion that she always proved to him and he found it there, in her eyes, in her easiness around him. It proved that he was still an ass after all, but he couldn’t say that nothing changed in him. Those four words had the power to turning his world upside down, as always when she spoke. What if he did change? What if he changed and Cercei didn’t? Was it the fracture in their relationship? He hoped that she did after their brief break-up and he had to give her another chance. She was part of his family after all, or at least she has been for so long. Even those dinners at his place with her, Tyrion and his father were gone. Even the devil didn’t care anymore. Thinking about it, Twyn looked tired in the last months.

Also, there was that itch in his throat. The more he thought about it, the more the rope tightened around his neck. He wanted to tell her to not go, to not believe anything that Hyle Hunt might have said. He could have bought a pizza and they could have eaten it together watching a stupid TV show instead.

“Are you there?” Brienne asked, waving a hand in front of his eyes.

“Yes. Yes. Sorry, I’m overthinking.” He said still confused “So he didn’t end up alcoholic after all.” Who would have thought that they would have had that conversation when Jaime first met Brienne? It was wrong, just wrong.

“Sansa doesn’t trust him.” She confessed.

Her eyes were looking below. A veil laid on her shining blue, while a lock of hair escaped from all the pins that she tried to apply to handle it. She was worried and there was a sad note in her voice. Jaime could recognise all the symptoms of sadness and insecurity in his friend. _What happened to you, Brienne? Why do you want to prove to me that you can go out with someone else and forget me?_

“I don’t too.” Jaime said, seeing an opening and thanking Sansa for the first time since he met her. “We agree for once, you should listen.” He would have even plead Sansa to help him on it.

Brienne faced him with a determination that he hardly saw in the last years. She was the same girl that he met in the principal’s office several years ago. He almost feared her. _What have I done to you?_

“I won’t.” she just said.

“I suspected.” As he also suspected that he couldn’t accept the plot twist that she wrote in their story, that wasn’t moving on from any points of view. He would have tried to convince her to not do it sooner or later. He would have explained why it was a bad idea and they would have stayed together to eat pizza. He just needed some moments to think about it with a clear head and to come up with a plan.

***

Jaime thought that if he would have spent more time with his friend, if he would have been nice and if he would have hidden Cercei more from Brienne, she would have changed her mind. She would have understood what he was feeling and she would have been pitiful with him.

In the following days, he visited her almost every day at the campus. He drove her back and forth in King’s Landing and followed her everywhere: to the library, to her classes, to the doctor when she got ill and even to the grocery shop to buy milk for her breakfast. He was spending more time with her than he had ever with Cercei. He was almost living with her if it wasn’t for the night.

The worst part of his new habitudes was to not even mention anything to his girlfriend and to make up stories to not push her to call him while he was with Brienne. Cercei was still living far away from him in Lannisport and their arrangement about the trips didn’t change in the last years, so it was easy for him to not make her know. For two weeks Jaime drove from King’s Landing to Lannisport, using his father’s poor health condition as an excuse with Brienne and so preventing also Cercei to reach Jaime in the main city. He was getting pretty good to never make his life with Brienne cross his life with Cercei.

Everything was so perfect till his car broke. Jaime couldn’t use it to come back to Cercei, so maybe she would have come to King’s Landing for that week. It would have happened if Jaime wasn’t so clever to use her aversion to public transports. He talked about buses and metros more and more with her during their calls, to the point that she decided to wait some more time to visit him. He talked about the smell, the noise, the sticky handrail and people clung to each other at rush hour in the best way he could.

His knowledge about metros came from Brienne. She kept dragging him from train to train, talking about poverty and human rights, college, books or the last stupid tv show that she watched on the last night and about how that tv show influenced people. In the past he was intrigued by her cleverness and by those smart conversations, but in the last years they became unimportant. Actually, nothing seemed important. He couldn’t reply anymore. He couldn’t keep pace with her anymore.

The moments that he felt the most comfortable at all with her were when she was sleeping, because he didn’t have to play the smart guy and he could watch her dream. She could sleep anywhere. Brienne had that absurd ability to ignore any kind of noise from the background, even the clanks of the trains on the rail or the itinerant busker who played a guitar once.

Brienne was sleeping on his right shoulder as always when Jaime noticed her for the first time ever. She created a personal spot on his body, that was just her own and it allowed him to look at her sleepy face. Jaime could always feel the gentle press of her head and the tickle of her hair on his neck, even when she wasn’t there.

They were both sat on those hard and absolutely uncomfortable iron chairs. Jaime turned just to look at her peaceful face as he was used to do and smiled. He felt a wave of affection right in that moment and the irresistible rush to plane a kiss on her forehead, so gently that she almost woke up. Her browns furrowed as if something annoyed her. A speaker announced the next stop of the train. Just three left for the two of them.

“Wake up, wake up.” he whispered musically as if he was singing, just turning a little. Maybe he could kiss her there, in that moment, in the twilight sleep, when the memory fails. 

Her beautiful eyes went open and in an instant she was looking at him. “Did I fall asleep?” she asked as she stirred. The stink of the vagon hit her as a kick in the back. She held on Jaime’s arm, solid and ever present.

“As always.” He replied looking at her as she standed up. The long line of the legs danced in front of him. Something was moving in his guts. He looked for her breast and her back and he found himself longing too much on it. She was wearing just jeans and white shirt and he felt the desire to unbutton it and find out what she had below.

An old woman was looking at them from the very beginning. She turned her nose up at Jaime’s eyes, as if she could know exactly what he was thinking. He noted and he imaged that the woman could read the malice in his head. Did he care? Why caring? He turned and looked at Brienne again.

“You look good in these pants.” Jaime genuinely said.

“What?” Brienne was still yawning and appeared confused. She never heard such appreciations from him. She looked down to see what she was wearing and then at him. “I own this stuff from centuries!”

“You weren’t born centuries ago!” Jaime mocked her, hoping that she would have forgot his previous statement. Or maybe not. He waited till she realized what he said to her, just a little longer of her usual because of the sleepiness state she was in. Then he raised his arms to parry her blows, trying to protect himself without harming her. And he wasn’t even sure that he could. She could hit him pretty hard.

The woman was keeping looking at them, her attention drawn by the noise. Jaime caught the look in her eyes way before that she said “You two!” shutting them down. And for once, maybe the first time ever, Jaime wasn’t so annoyed by that kind insinuation about them.

“Sorry!” Brienne said, apologizing for both, always being too good and too polite, so to please an old voyeuristic woman in a train.

Jaime extender his arm to take her hand and pull her down on the uncomfortable chair, where he just wanted to hug her and smell the perfume from her hair. He knew that she was enjoying it too, that she was feeling the same, because she didn’t rebel as she would have done when she was a teenager. Maybe he wouldn’t have even tried. There was affection and that smell that was intoxicating him.

“Don’t go out with Hyle!” Jaime whispered suddenly as a plea.

In that moment his plan fell. Brienne thought about his renewed interest in her regards, at the last days they spent together, at their conversation and at the lost look he had when she first talked about Hyle Hunt. “What did you just say?” Brienne asked. Of course, she heard everything and something clicked in her head: that was why he was acting weird and, of course, he didn’t have the rights to say so.

All the laughs disappeared and the silent became so heavy he couldn’t bear it. “You heard.” So he said it. He was walking on a dangerous path, but he couldn’t come back. Nobody could tell her what to do, not even her father, why should Jaime be allowed to? Fuck, he wasn’t that coward, for Gods’s sake! He savoured the taste of her scent, the soap and that fucking fabric softener of hers. “He isn’t right for you or anybody.”

Brienne shook her head and turned to look into his eyes. The train stopped in a station, the old woman left with a sigh of relief and Jaime and Brienne were finally alone. She was freezing him in place. Jaime could just think of a giant amount of ice when she did that thing with her blue iris.

“No, you can’t.” she whispered, moving away from him, still looking at him as if she could have killed him. “You can’t be serious.” There was something threatening in voice, as if she was saying something more than her words.

Game, set, match, miss Tarth, well done, but you won because of Jaime’s poor playing. “You want to go out with him just to lose your fucking virginity.”. As soon as he pronounced those words, he wanted to take them back. Or to kill himself, for what it meant. He should have bitten his tongue to the death. Blood was far better than words.

Brienne shook her head again in shock. “Do you really think so?” she asked, almost crying. Her blue eyes watered in a second and Jaime knew that when she cried, she got angry and when she got angry, the white around the blue reddened very fast. “Do you really think that of me?”

He really knew her well enough to understand the proportion of the mistake that he made. Jaime cooled off to balance her rage and he spoke more gently than before. “I am trying to protect you.” He said, trying to calm her down with a gesture of his hands.

“Oh no. Don’t you try.” Brienne stepped back with a finger up. The usual metallic voice announced the train’s next step. The lights blinked, while a bulb burned out and a pale sunbeam tried to replace it.

“I really am.” Jaime said, trying to convince himself in first place and then her.

“Oh, are you?” Brienne challenged him “And what should I say about that fucking relationship of yours? That whore who is fucking everyone and you think she is the big love of your life!” she broke, taking Cercei up again, the giant disagreement between them. Brienne never liked the way she treated Jaime and Jaime never approved the way Brienne was used to speak of her. She yelled to not cry, because he was so stupid to not understand why she was trying to date other people and because she was so stupid to not understand why he was playing the big friend, why he was so close in the last weeks. Because he was so stupid to be possessive, without even wanting her to be his own or without wanting him to be hers.

Jaime’s eyes rolled. “Shut up.” He whispered. Talking about relationships was a mistake.

“Piss off, Jaime. I never interfered with your life pretending to protect you.” She yelled and she left.

She really had a long pair of legs. What a stupid one you are, Jaime Lannister.

***

In the right moment Brienne’s feet touched the ground of the rail station, she burst into tears.

Why did he say it? Why did he speak about her virginity, about her lack of relationship with the opposite sex, about stuff that she didn’t even care? Did he think that she was so shallow to believe that dating anyone would have been the same for her? Did he believe that having fun for one night meant that she had to have sex with anyone who wasn’t him? Didn’t he know that she loved him and that she couldn’t even touch another man? Did he believe her to be capable of such a thing? Why was he so mean to her? Why did he play the good friend to hurt her after that? Why was he so jealous? Why was his jealousy so evil?

The tears bloated her eyes, making her looking even worse than the usual. A so big and so ungentle woman crying at the station wasn’t an appealing image for anyone. 

She thought about Jaime while walking to the college, to her room. He wasn’t the same guy she met. He wasn’t the same boy who appeared on her porch one night, crying for a woman. He wasn’t the one who lived with her and her father for some months. He wasn’t the one she fell in love with.

He changed, she was right that day. He was calculating every move he made. He lost his fresh interest in culture. He even lost his interest in Cercei, she believed. He wasn’t the spontaneous boy that she remembered, the one who could make her laugh out of nowhere.

Something changed in Jaime and Brienne wasn’t sure to like the last version of him.

When Sansa saw her, a flash of rage enlightened her eyes just for one second, till Brienne started to cry again and so her friend just reached her and hugged her.

Sansa was right, she always told that Jaime wasn’t her friend, not anymore.

***

“Hi.” Jaime said when she opened the door of her room some days after. She didn’t reply, nor moved from the doorframe to let him pass. Her eyes were wandering around, looking everything but his face. Her nostrils large, her mouth pressed in a line as if she was still on fire by rage. He never saw that look on her face. “How was your date?” he asked as if he was interested. He just wanted to know if she went there or not. 

Brienne sighed, hyperventilated, swallowed and almost cried. Her red face and her breathing nose made her looked like a dragon. Her hands gripped the door handle and she was about to close it on his nose, when he stopped her with a foot and a desperate face.

“I overreacted.” He begged her. “I shouldn’t have interfered. I couldn’t bear the thought of you with Hyle.” He said and that moved something: her face relaxed, her eyes opened wide. He pushed the right button. You, stupid, selfish Jaime. You know how to push her buttons. You know why it’s so easy for you to do it and you feel even guilty for doing it. And yet, you keep pushing.

Brienne would have cried again. She would have asked for Sansa’s help, who was hiding behind the door, sitting on the desk where she was used to study and to write mails for her father. She tried to avoid his sad face and to look at the wood grain of the frame door.

“I’m trying to say sorry.” He said, while Brienne scratched a splinter.

“You really never said sorry.”

Jaime gulped. He was in trouble and for what she could see, he didn’t know how to go on. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

“I am too.” She just replied.

His eyes watered fast. A shadow fell on his face and darkened his beautiful features. He got more handsome day by day. “No, you are right.” He admitted “Cercei is a whore. But I love her. You can’t choose who you love and if you love someone you want to stay as closer as you can to that person, even if it hurts you.”

He couldn’t understand how right he was. “I know.” She said with a weak voice. Jaime looked at her and she knew that he understood. They looked at each other for some seconds, till Sansa moved, dropping a pen from the desk to the ground. Brienne looked at her and she was just shaking her head.

“So, I guess,” Jaime tried to say and his voice came out as a desperate whisper “friends again?”

“Friends again.”

Brienne reached out her hand to him to shake it as if it was the first time that they were doing it, as if something changed and they needed introduction again. He shook it and he smiled. If just he didn’t do it. If just he didn’t smile, Brienne wouldn’t have forgot what happened so fast. If just he didn’t smile, she would have been brave enough to follow her friend’s advice. Sansa would have said that she jumped into the trap.

“How was your date?” he asked, as he was used to do some years ago, as he was used to do when they were friends for real.

“Terrible as ever.” She said laughing. “People don’t change.” Brienne admitted, remembering his words. She didn’t notice the sigh of relieve, the look on his face, the glimmering in his eye when she laughed and told the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guyssss  
> Sorry, sorry. I'm terrebly late. I have no excuses. I just hope you liked the chapter.  
> Actually it's the first one I ever wrote (and you can kind of notice) in this story. I really hope that you liked it (yup, again). My idea of this ff born with this chapter, with the angst of this chapter. I loved so much writing it that I elaborated a story around it.  
> So, let me know what you think. I enjoyed it really a lot (or too much).  
> Hold on for the next, it's kind of sad. I don't want to spoil but prepare tissues.
> 
> psss I still hope there are no grammar mistakes, or at least there are a few.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

The day that Selwyn Tarth was waiting for came too fast for his daughter. He worked hard night and day to save money for an apartment in King’s Landing. A place that his daughter could have used as a private office or for living. She was so close to become a lawyer and Selwyn was so proud of her that he even understood that she couldn’t come back home anymore, that her life must be in the main city and he just wanted to help her the most that he could.

One morning he went to the bank, he made a transfer and then he called her. “Please, my child, can you check your bank account?” he asked in trepidation.

She should have pretended to be confused, but Selwyn mentioned the point so many times that she couldn’t be surprised. She was almost waiting for it.

“I will use it for a place, dad.” She said, after she pretended to check her account for real.

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart.”

***

Brienne spent the following weeks in a real estate agency. She looked on a screen so many apartments that she believed to know all the house plants that were in vogue in King’s Landing in the last centuries.

A tall, thin and brown-haired woman showed her all the free houses built in the last years.

Carol was the best seller in town. Brienne was impressed by her ability to categorize them from the shape of the windows or by the heights of the walls. She could tell you if there were moisture and water infiltration by the look of the plaster on the outside. But even if Brienne was impressed by Carol’s speeches, she couldn’t find a place that worthed her father’s money soon. In her head it was much more important than any kind of four walls and one roof that anybody could propose her. It came from the sweet of his brow and she couldn’t waste it for a moldy wet house.

When her father talked first to her about this project, she imaged a place that looked almost like home, that was almost like herself, that could be modern and new but also comfortable. It took Brienne a month to get suited to the idea. Then, when Brienne saw the pictures of the place that would have become her house for the following years, she immediately imaged herself on the couch with a cup of tea in her hand, watching at TV or reading a book. She immediately called Jaime and set up an appointment. Somehow, she wanted her past and her future to meet, to see if he could see it too.

Jaime was enthusiastic to the idea. The more time he spent with Brienne, the better it was for him. So, his agreement set Brienne in agitation and when she scheduled a visit, she couldn’t be more nervous than she was. She scheduled an appointment to see the place in which she would have lived in the following years! She could see herself studying in there, getting ready to go to work, waking up there, cooking, having showers… The future was about to take shape.

It was odd how she passed from a total refuse for her father’s offer to the excitement that she was feeling. It was as if she wasn’t ready till that moment to grow up and it took her just a fantasy, just the idea of a couch to make her feel abruptly like an adult. It was even more odd that the first person that she wanted to share the feeling with was Jaime. Their relationship wasn’t so easy anymore. Sometimes Brienne felt tired of keeping pretending: to not know that he knew about her affection; to not notice his behaviour around her and to not care; to hide her feeling around him; to be his friend and him to be hers. He wasn’t anymore. Brienne couldn’t remember when it started, but somewhen she didn’t think about him as her present anymore. She could locate him already in the past. Their friendship was long gone and it wasn’t just because she was in love with him, but because somewhen he got aware of it and he decide to play with it.

She noticed how close he tried to approach to her, the numerous touches that he tried to give her, the way he tried to hide his girlfriend from her, the flirting low voice that he used when they were alone, the way he tried to act the same as ever when he knew that was too much for her. But still, he was a milestone of her past and she remembered how strong the idea of the location of him in her future was once.

Somewhen, she even stopped crying.

***

When the day came, she waited for Jaime to go to catch her. She was looking at all the cars passing by while waiting. She was feeling anxious and annoyed by the time moving along.

She kept looking at her phone and arising her eyes just when she heard the roar from another car coming. When his vehicle arrived, lights on and approaching to the curb, she felt herself sighing of relief.

The glass of his window went down and his smile welcomed her. “How much for an hour?” he said in the worst sly smile.

“Finally!” she said, ignoring his poor joke, as it deserved. She sat on the passenger seat and tapped the foot on the floor, then she studied her notes. Her stomach was twitching and she was sure that she would have throwed up soon. She looked at the streets and then she pointed at the right of the next intersection. Jaime followed her instructions silently, trying to spy her beautiful eyes as he got accustomed to do.

When they finally arrived, the woman from the agency was already waiting for them. She was standing on a foot and then to another. She was upright already for a long time and her high black heels were making impossible for her to stand nonchalantly. “Hi.” She said as the two of them got out of the car, trying to force a smile. “What a beautiful couple.” She complimented them, as she looked at Jaime for the first time.

“Thanks.” He just replied, winkling at Brienne.

She was about to correct the woman, making her aware of the long old friendship story, when Jaime took her hand, intertwining his fingers with her owns, silently thanking again and playing a game with Brienne.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, moving her lips to shape the words, without letting a breath out of her mouth.

His hand was warm and foreign. She could recognise his touch, but its tenderness was something unfamiliar for her. He strengthened his grip and he even brought her hand to his lips to kiss it. It would have been a lie to say that it didn’t cause her heart to skip a beat, but she started to feel sadness too in his action and unfortunately sadness was the only thing that he didn’t catch in her face.

“My wife insisted with this apartment.” Jaime said, never leaving her eyes, not even forgetting the reason why they were there together.

His green was magnetic. Brienne wanted to look away, to the woman. Carol, Carol was her name. She wanted to look at her, explain the whole situation and get free. But still, it wasn’t right up her alley. She thought that her eyes would have gotten watery soon, when suddenly she remembered why they were there too. Brienne looked away from his sight and turned to the door of her soon-to-be house.

“Well, your wife didn’t say it was for two.” Carol said, opening the door, without noticing Brienne’s struggles “Maybe it’s too small for a young couple.”

When Brienne followed her, Jaime caught her hand again. “Oh, no, don’t worry. We like it small. Well, she doesn’t, of course.” He said in the same flirty voice.

“Yeah. Sure.” Carol said, almost disgusted. Or just not interested in that poor way of Jaime to flirt.

Brienne ignored him again. It was getting easier and easier and the easiness opened her eyes. She was standing in the middle of the place that would have been the set of her future with the man who belonged to her past. She looked at the stuffs that Carol taught her: the lack of chipped paint on the wall, the perfect white of the ceiling, the angle of the light through the windows. Then at Jaime. She looked around and she knew. Brienne sighed, finally seeing her future how it was supposed to be: her career and her place. She just owed him another chance. Maybe she owed it to herself too, because of the milestone thing.

“Can you leave us for a moment?” Brienne asked to the woman. Carol, her name was Carol, she remembered to herself again.

Jaime’s face went dark in a second. He turned to his beautiful new wife, the word “what” formed on his lips without leaving a sigh out of it, just for her to hear, as she did some minutes ago. He was afraid that he must have gone beyond the unspoken edge of their relationship. He was afraid that she would have made him stop, cutting his play and leaving it just for fantasies. He looked at her and wondered when that exact fantasy began, when he started to think about buying a house with Brienne, when he saw her beside him in the future. Jaime looked at her, watching at the windows, trying to figure if the summer sun would have enlightened it on morning or on the afternoon, and he realised there wasn’t a day that he never thought of her beside him.

“Of course.” Carol said, leaving them room to talk in the small place, trying to look busy with something on the floor. 

“I think this is it.” Brienne said, but a veil of sadness lied down on her eyes.

“I knew.” He said. Jaime stretched out a finger and tipped her nose like a baby. “From that look.”

Brienne sighed. She wanted to yell, to cry, to punch him and ask him what the hell was going on, but it wasn’t about time. Instead she sighed again and looked at him. She gave him a look that said to him “we are not done yet.”

“I want it.” Brienne said then to the woman.

It was amazing how good she was to hide her feeling, how she could pretend in front of other people, how good she was in playing. For all the time, Jaime knew what was in heart and he admired her temper.

The woman looked at her, then at him, swinging on her polished heels. Her arms were crossed as if she was thinking about it. Her fingers and her nails were leaving white marks in her skin. She must not like them, maybe he pushed too much, but her intention was to sell and she had to leave the apartment to the strange couple. “All right.” She had to say in the end, after a long moment, as if she was making a bad effort. “Can you wait for me to sign the papers?” she asked.

In the right moment the woman left from the door and he couldn’t see her in the frame of it anymore, Jaime run to Brienne. He took her hands and then her hips and hugged and kissed her on her lips and then on her cheek, correcting his aim. The woman wasn’t looking at them, so that wasn’t for show.

Jaime tightened his grip, leaving her without breath. When he thought that he had enough, he left her and checked if the woman was coming back. She was and in the right moment he saw her, Jaime offered to Brienne a pen to sign. What a coincidence, she was getting in the adult world by kissing Jaime Lannister, buying a house, signing with his pen and realizing that something changed again. It wasn’t the same anymore and it wasn’t the right way that she imaged.

***

In the following days Brienne needed to take a break from Jaime Lannister, in order to clear her mind. She didn’t think there was something more to consider, but pretending gave her an excuse to delay the moment that she was fearing.

That kiss wasn’t how she imaged it. She dreamed about it for years. She thought that it would have driven her nuts, that it would have made her feel as if there were sparkles in her stomach, as if she could jump to the stars and back, but what she felt was just a weight on her chest that was choking her. 

Then the day that Carol gave her the key of her house came. She stayed to look at her front door for what felt like hours and finally she cried again and she knew why.

She was ready, but she didn’t want to.

_I need to talk to you_ – she wrote.

_On my way_ – he replied. Too soon. Sooner than always, sooner than expected.

Somewhen it wouldn’t have hurt anymore.

***

Jaime reached Brienne in the void apartment that she bought in King’s Landing. The front door was open and he could smell the paint from the porch. Jaime didn’t know which colour she picked, but he didn’t image that house if not with light blue on the walls and white for the kitchen.

When he entered the door, a smile appeared on his lips seeing the buckets of blue paint. Pages and pages from old newspapers were disseminated on the floor, protecting the parquet. She was sat in the middle of her living room, cross-legged and bare foot, wearing a pair of spoiled old jeans and a red t-shirt, interwoven with holes, that could come from her high school years. Her hair got longer than she was used to, so long that she could have tied it up. Her face was stained with paint. She was a mess and yet he thought that she was adorable.

“You should try to put the paint on the wall instead than on your face.” He said, just teasing her to ease the mood. Then he saw it, a little tennis ball, rolling on the floor. It was stained too and it was drawing its path on the papers. Jaime stopped it and bounced it, so to clean it.

It was just then that Brienne raised her eyes, waking up from a daydream. “Can I have it?” she asked.

Jaime didn’t need to see her face or hear her voice to understand that something was about to happen. He throwed the ball to her and he imaged that she must have left it there to allow herself to speak. Jaime would have never forgotten the sight and the colour of her eyes from that day. He remained still, letting the tiny ball roll from his hand to her own. What else could he do?

Brienne stood up and stirred her spine, finger crossed and hands high. From that position Jaime could see her flat stomach, inches of bare skin and he found himself wanting for more. It was like a dream. He felt like in a limbo, for ever lost between lust and bless, between the shape of her body and light of her irises.

“I thought about it a lot.” She said abruptly, waking him up. He took a deep breath, waiting for her to going on, trying to image what she was about to say and then he would have fallen again. “You need to know that it’s not easy for me either.” Jaime froze in place. A primal fear took his body and he couldn’t move or speak a word. His muscles were tense, as if determined to keep him in place as a punishment for his long list of mistakes. All he could do was waiting and listening. “I’m going to let it out, even if I know that it’s not enough and that you deserve explanations.” His heart was deafening. Its beats were making it harder to follow her speech. “I can’t be your friend anymore.” She said in the end.

The ball fell on the floor. For some seconds its bounces were the only louds in the house, thundering on the walls.

“What, why?” he asked, when he got finally released from his state. Jaime wasn’t thinking. His mind was empty just as that place, her words bouncing here and there, just as her yellow tennis ball. His eyes blurred and he thought to see in the corner her picking up the ball to speak again. To stab him again.

“Don’t pretend to not know the reason.” Brienne said, cutting to the chase, right to the point, hitting him right to the heart, where it would have hurt the most. Oh, that was his Brienne. His young girl, punished by the principal of an old high school, because she cared too much about people. Oh, his Brienne, who was making his heart bleed in pain. “I feel something.”

It would have been stupid to deny. It would have been stupid to pretend that he didn’t know, that he didn’t notice. Jaime closed his eyes just for a moment, realising that the day of reckoning had come. He took the little ball from her and played with it to avoid her. He didn’t know what to say. What were the rules in that case? He let it fall and waited, but Brienne didn’t move from her stance. So Jaime picked it up from the ground again and then he stretched his hand. He saw her taking a step back, as if she was afraid of his touch. “What?” he asked, afraid, trembling.

She took the ball, hiding her previous reluctance and she tossed it from one hand to the other. “I can’t.” she said, keeping looking at it, using it just as Jaime did, to hide from him, who were getting insistent more and more.

He was desperate. Jaime lost all his clever responses and his cockiness. He was babbling when he tried to say “You have the ball,” pointing at it “you have to speak.” Even if his voice was tough, it sounded like a cry, pleading her to talk and to explain. Jaime would have liked to get away, but fear froze him in place. For the first time in his life, Jaime was afraid.

She could image the same Jaime of the last days, the one who was full of harsh words, who could have played chess with her feelings. “Stop with this game.” She replied exasperate. Rage made her throw the ball to the newly painted wall. The ball would have made the dent of its lint on the fresh blue and she would have watched it for hours in the next days.

“It’s our game.”

Hearing him saying _our_ made her cry. Our. From the very first days. “It’s stupid.” She tried, ignoring his question, just as she always did with her father’s. She tried to survive to the moment in the same way she did while growing up: ignoring her feelings.

Jaime waited for a very long moment. Each second made him exasperated more and more. His breath was getting shorter, his heart pumping faster. “I said what, Brienne.” He said with fury. “Please.” He tried, calming down. He shouldn’t have said it, he shouldn’t. He should have bent on his knees and asked her forgiveness.

“I think you know.”

He could still bend, hug her legs and cry. It was impossible to believe they were fighting on the edge of her confession. Jaime realised then that he was waiting for that moment from all his life, that every speech he had with her would have led him there, that every doubt he had was meant to fade away right in that moment. He understood that in another world he would have found the perfect answer to her loving speech right in that moment, that everything would have been clear finally and that he would have gotten emotional and probably cried. Of course, he never imaged that his tears would have been so sad and desperate.

“No, I don’t” he just said, still crying, while his dream vanished “Or maybe I just want to hear it from you for once.”

Brienne couldn’t watch at any part of him. The sounds of his sadness were making her unstable on her feet. It was the hardest thing that she had ever did. “Then you are selfish.” She was able to say, while she was keeping looking at the print of the ball on her wall. She made a mistake in choosing the place for that last conversation. It should have been an anonymous set, that she would have never visited again. Now that blue and that room would have reminded for ever of their goodbye.

“Then you love a selfish man.” Jaime managed to say in a faint, almost inaudible voice.

Brienne froze and rose finally her eyes on him. He knew. Her heart was beating hard. Her lips parted, but no words came out. She just throwed the ball to him. “You said it.”

Jaime immediately covered his mouth with hands. What did he say, what did he say? What an idiot. No, no, no, no. His mind was confused. He needed a moment to stop it. What has he done? He closed immediately his eyes. He didn’t want to see her angry. He kept his eyes shut even when he felt her hands all around his body, trying to push him outside the door.

“No, no,” he said trying to stop her, sounding more and more alarmed. “Brienne, wait.”

“You know what makes me angry right now?” she yelled “You knew and you ignored it.”

And she was implying that he knew that she was pining after him, that she was suffering at every embrace, every kiss, everything. And she was right. _Just don’t kick me out, I will be better, I will be the friend you deserve._ Ah, that word! Friend. We are here again. That word changed everything again, as if it could have turned off his brain. “And what should I have done?” he tried to outstand her voice with his own, suddenly angry like her. “Tell you again I love another woman?” and he stopped, as for creating a pregnant pause, watching the pang in her chest through her eyes. “How many times did I tell it to you? Should have I lost you because a little crush you had on me?”

“Little cr-…” She whispered and all the rage flew back quietly from her. “Do you know why I can’t?” she asked. She couldn’t say when she started crying “If you ask me again, I’d forgive you and I can’t. It’s not right for me.”

“Brienne, please, you are my friend. My best friend.” He had to admit and he was crying too. He was desperate again and he knew those were the last words that he was going to say to her “The person I’m closest to, plea-”

“Not anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, here I am, back again.   
> I'm sorry for the late, but work is taking my soul after the lockdown.  
> So this is my new chapter. I don't know what else to say actually, it makes me sad and I hope it's angst enough for you.   
> Well, let me know what you think. Hope you have enjoyed it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

****

“I’m okay.” Three words. Brienne looked at Sansa. After what she had done, she was waiting for her friend's approval. Brienne thought that she would have been in excited, that she would have been even in joy for Sansa, who never liked Jaime. Then why did her face look so sad? Why wasn’t her clapping at her? Or yelling or... “Happy?” she asked and if Brienne wouldn’t have fought, yelled or throwed a punch, she would have been cried and she didn’t want to. She couldn’t. Unexpectedly, she fell on the floor. The walls broke, the dam burst open and she started to cry like a baby. Desperate.

“How could I be?” Sansa said in soft words, getting close to her and petting her hair, trying to protect her from her own self. She caressed her friend and listened at her cries like a mother. “You know what I think?” then she said with a soft voice.

“That I’m stupid.” Brienne managed to say when the tears stopped for a second. She felt so stupid to feel bad for Jaime, to cry for his loss or the loss of the person that she thought to know.

“Yes, you are.” Sansa replied, always being honest, always loyal to her beliefs. “But I think he is much more than you.” Sansa said, making her smile just a little. It was nothing, but Sansa was proud of it. It was just a beginning and she would have never deprived Brienne of her chance to accept what just happened, even to cry over Jaime Lannister. To grow up and to be the woman that she was meant to be.

“Please.” Brienne asked. She couldn’t bear her hostility or accusation in that moment. Each childish word appeared so heavy. There wasn’t room enough in her head to manage all those emotions and she felt that she was so close to burn out. How long would it have hurt so much? How long would she have cried? How much time does a person need to cancel from her head someone who was part of her story almost from the very start?

The outside sky matched soon with Brienne’s mood. The wind was whistling and yelling. The rain was falling heavy, swirling in the storm, tapping and almost knocking at their window. Brienne inhaled watching at it and drop by drop the ache in her chest and the burn in her eyes soothed.

She was going to make it. Sooner or later, the pain would have stopped. Sooner or later she would have waked up and didn’t feel bad for her loss or guilty for having left him alone. The wind silenced as to reply to her thoughts, matching again.

Sansa smiled, softer and softer. “You know,” she started to say, looking at the ceiling. Her eyes darkened, watching at something that existed only in her head, as if she could catch a thought by looking at it “I wish that one day I could love someone as much as you do.” She confessed. “At least once.”

Brienne had never heard her friend talking about being in love. What she always liked about Sansa was that she could be a woman, be proud of it and not afraid of it, without even mentioning love. Her femininity was independent from her feelings and that was the kind of woman (of person) that Brienne wanted to be. It was the first time that her friend opened her heart to her. She looked sad, even anxious. A smile appeared on her face.

“Come on. Let’s eat junk food and watch a romantic movie.”

***

When spring came, the message of death of Twyn Lannister was printed on hundreds of posters, spread all over the city. Wherever you lived in Lannisport, you would have had breakfast reading about the grief of his two children. People murmured about murder, car accident and even about suicide because of his last loss in the stock market. Truth was easier and trivial, even disappointing.

Twyn had suffered of heartburn. He blamed the stress for some months. Everybody, from his sons to his secretary, advised him to go to the doctor, but he had no time and he didn’t want to see a pompous graduated man who would have told him to rest. Twyn despised impositions. Till one day a coughing fit tasted irony on his tongue. Then he saw the blood. The diagnosis was as fast as his prognosis: pancreatic cancer. He died in a hospital just sixty days after.

Nobody cared. Nobody came at his funeral. He never had a friend, never had a woman, aside from his long-lost wife, to whom he would have finally reunited. Aside from his two children.

They were alone. Jaime had never thought that horrible day would have come. What a childish and stupid belief it was, seeing your only parent as immortal when you have already lost the other one.

The sun was shining and he was so fucking hot in his black dress. Jaime was sweating instead of crying, how stupid. There were even birds singing in the cemetery, having fun on their trees, not caring about people's grief.

Tyrion was right there too. Jaime could turn and see him there. He changed over the years. The beard got the best of his face, making him look like older and wiser. Sadness was doing the same. Jaime had the impression that he had been prepared for all his life for that moment. Was he waiting for it? Hoping for it? Or was it just wisdom? Be ready for the tragedy and it will never come or surprise you, or crap like this?

Jaime sighed and looked at the coffin. How long is supposed a funeral to last? It got over so quickly that Jaime didn’t even notice it. So quickly that it seemed inappropriate, unworthy. The grave couldn’t take him so soon. It wasn’t time. Someone else would have come for him. But it never happened.

Someone closed the coffin. Someone buried it. Someone patted on his shoulder and it was officially over. Drink. He needed alcohol and its sweet numbness. He looked around, still standing on that too green grass and saw a bar in the corner, just on the street. Ah, funny, a bar so close to a cemetery. They must have had business sense.

The place was dark, the window had green and black glass, that didn’t give the chance to the light to get in or maybe it was just another strategy to not allow the people in to see the graves outside. You would have got in for the sadness and stayed for the atmosphere. Or to forget.

His only allied was already there. How that happened? Tyrion saw Jaime and poured for him a glass of who knows what. “Cheers!” he said, drinking.

“Cheers.” Jaime said, imitating him. The liquor was sour and strong, it pinched his throat and burned his stomach. Soon it would have made him sweat more and more. At least, by then, he wouldn’t have cared. “Family is over. We just got each other.”

Tyrion smiled. He was already there. “You have Cercei, who have I?”

“Me.”

Tyrion smiled again. Yes, he had Jaime for sure, but it couldn’t last for ever. “You should start one. Family, I mean. I would in your shoes.”

Jaime was still too sober to not understand what he was saying. A white house, a garden, a yellow painted kitchen, a dog, a wife, some children. He downed another couple of shots to shake off that crazy idea, but before that the alcohol could work, he thought of another woman, who wasn’t there. The one that he wanted to be there. She would have deleted that crazy fantasy from his head, then she would have drunk with him, cried with him and then she would have shaken some sense into him. Or maybe not. Weird, he felt that he couldn’t cry instead in front of Cercei.

His phone vibrated. Her name was there. Cercei. Through good and bad. But from the other end of the call. She didn’t come. Their relationship still so subtle to not make any sense. He couldn’t cry in front of her because she wasn’t there.

“And what will you do?” he asked to Tyrion. Jaime always felt the weight of being the older brother, a kind of sense of responsibility for him.

“The uncle, I guess.” Tyrion smiled. His eyelids got heavy. He was almost closing his eyes and he had already prepared his arms to slip onto.

Jaime smiled. Adulthood, what a cruel way to be pushed into.

***

Summer is the happiest season in all colleges around the world. Most of the students from the last year get graduated. They get the satisfaction from applauses for their sacrifices. They have party and on the morning after they overlook the world of work.

Brienne Tarth graduated with the highest grades and both her dad and her best friend were there to celebrate her. Brienne was still wearing cap and gown when her relatives ran to her, kissing and hugging her, leaving her with no breath.

“Your mother would be so proud.” Selwyn kept repeating on loop. He was doing his best to hide the tears from his daughter, wiping them away once with the hem of his right sleeve, once with the left. He was doing a poor job and his red nose was betraying him. Brienne smiled and hugged him. She loved him so much. She was so thankful to have him as father.

“Can I say to anyone who annoys me to talk to my lawyer?” Sansa asked, during the assault. Her voice was high and cheerful, genuinely happy for her friend who she had supported till the first day. The tight hug began again, making her huff by inertia.

“Just if anyone can pay.” Brienne replied with a short voice. She could complain, sigh or pant, but she couldn’t deny that she loved those hugs, that joy and that so tight and close enthusiasm. Those displays of affections remembered her that another person in her life was used to touch and hug her so often, making her almost miss his skin contact.

“Already in business.” Her father joked.

“And she is wearing a skirt.” Sansa added, trying to get the credit of it.

Brienne looked at herself, wearing a skirt and holding her law degree. She was finally proud of herself, of whom she was, of whom she became. Of whom she finally accepted to be. “I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for both of you.” She said and it was true.

“Your mother would be so proud.” Her father said again, smiling and crying. He just couldn’t stop to use the word “so” so often.

Brienne laughed. “For my style?” she asked, then she throwed in a twirl, being surprisingly spontaneous. The gown opened, showing the black, tight and knee-length skirt that was perfectly wrapping her body. She could finally embrace femininity in all of its forms. It wasn’t important if she was wearing jeans, trousers or skirts. She would have always been Brienne Tarth. Alas, she owned only that one in her closet, so she didn’t change that much.

“No, for the woman you became.” He said. Her father took her cheeks with both his hands, forcing her to look at him in his watery and touching eyes.

“Thanks.” She said and maybe she could have dropped some tears too. “An attorney.” She remembered to herself aloud, looking at her degree again.

The first step was made.

***

Time ran fast.

It always ran fast when you are doing nothing, when you are wasting it by waiting who knows what. Maybe Tyrion was right. And maybe when he found himself on the grave of his father on the second anniversary of his death, he decided that it was about time to make a choice and twist his fate. His father would have despised his hesitation, his life at the moment, his inability to take a decision. His father was still pushing him from the hell. The devil, he was used to name him. Jaime smiled at the thought from his childhood. Brienne was used to call him like that.

The speech that Tyrion made to him on that terrible day came back again and again in those years. Maybe that was the right move, surely the one that Twyn Lannister wanted for him. He should have married her. He should have built something new with Cercei, a new family: big house, children and everything. His inescapable and necessary fate. What his father always wanted. The only one thing that Twyn thought he would have been good at: to fuck.

Jaime awakened from his slumber and, moved by an unfamiliar and weird force, he walked along the street till he found a jewelry store. He stopped and stayed in front of that window looking at engagement rings for too long. He could see the moment he would have bought it, but he couldn’t see himself putting it on her finger. He couldn’t see a ceremony, he couldn’t see Cercei in his house, with their children. They were too much alike and her behaviour remembered him so much of his dead father and he understood that probably he had never been free for all his life, looking for someone who pushed him down. But who was Jaime Lannister?

He also remembered a conversation he had a long time ago. It was from the time that he run away from his house because of Cercei’s affair. Brienne asked him what he wanted to do with his life. Was it possible that she was the only one who saw him as the adult person he would have become and not as the heir of his father? Was it possible that she saw that moment coming from the very first beginning, since she was still in high school?

Jaime walked back home.

Somewhen he moved back to his hometown. Things got back to normality, as if the last years never happened. Cercei got used again to come at Jaime’s house for dinner. They ordered food, the three of them, of this new family, eat and then she got used to pull him upstairs in his room. Tyrion, Jaime and Cercei.

The Lannisters. Soon to be, at least.

She was there, in his life. They had dinner together every night with meat and fruit, drinking wine and not talking. Jaime watched at the three of them at the table. The soon to be Lannister. He looked at Tyrion, occupying the usual seat. Then at himself, eating from the same dish he used for years. Then at Cercei, sitting at his father’s place. A tyrant after another.

He let her pull him upstairs in his room, where she sat on his bed, maybe their bed, spreading her legs, as usual, where he would have been holed up, drinking from her as from a bottle of liquor. He looked at her thoughtful. There was something deeply wrong in it. In her on his bed. In his life, intoxicating him. Addicting him.

He looked at her, hoping to see a future taking form in front of him, that colourful house, that woman in a white dress, those children, that dog, but nothing happened. Jaime smiled. It wasn’t a surprise after all. He thought back at all those conversations that he had with Brienne, at what she always said. She was right. What do you want to do, Jaime, with your life? She always knew, she had already seen the moment that was about to come. The void in his life made him finally grow up. The flatness clarified his mind, making him finally understand.

It was about time to do the right thing. For him and for Cercei. She would have understood sooner or later, as it happened to him. He sat down, next to her. Jaime took her hands gently and caressing them with his thumb. She did it back and that softness, so foreign to Cercei, made him smile a little. He has been so stupid.

“Cercei?” he called her. In the past he thought that if it would have had ever happened, he would have been scared. He wasn’t, Jaime didn’t need to be brave on this once. Everything was so fucking clear.

“Yeah?”

“Why are we still here?” He didn’t know where to start, as for most of the things in his life. He just winged it, taking the long road. “Why did you never want me to come at your house for dinner?” And he thought of Selwyn Tarth, saying him he was his son for the time he stayed at his house. He thought of the long dinners they had all together and to the lost feeling of being part of something. Jaime wanted that _something_. He thought at Selwyn’s speech about his own wedding, about his wife and her lipstick. Jaime smiled, he tightened his grip at her skin and then he looked at Cercei.

It was so fucking clear.

“What?” she asked confused. Her green eyes were staring at him so intensely as she was always used to do, that he had the feeling that she was studying him, as if she was looking for something in his face, a sign of what he was meaning or about to do.

Jaime took a deep breath and finally he found the words that were on the tip of his tongue since for ever, waiting to be spoken. “When we were young, you always came here at my house, but you never wanted me at yours. We were hiding, even if everybody knew. We still are. Why?”

She didn’t know how to answer. If he should have had to, he would. They both knew there was a tiny wrong iota in their relationship, something that made the both of them ashamed. There was something to hide. It was exciting, thrilling, arousing when they were children, but somewhere along the line it started to be a burden, then to hurt themselves, each other and whoever stood in the way. Cercei read her iota when she was younger, when she found someone else. His iota was the sense of shame that he felt because he never followed his heart in picking Brienne, making her wait and suffer because of his fear to meet the real Jaime, hidden behind Cercei’s gown. He had been just a lot of pretty words spoken to the wrong woman for so long that he believed that those words would have made him a better person.

Never in his life he expected to speak those words aloud. “We need to talk.” He said and he took a deep breath because the moment of another goodbye came. It would have been hard, as it was supposed to be. He thought it would have been heart-breaking, almost impossible, but right. Deep down, Jaime always knew that the moment would have come. 

He told her about all the doubts he had since he was twenty, he told her that he moved to King’s Landing because he loved someone who was living there, because he fell in love with a girl who dumped him.

She yelled.

“Why you never said anything?” she kept screaming and throwing stuff at him, whatever she could get her hands on, to hurt him, to ease her pain. He let her, hoping that his pain would have helped her with her own.

It didn’t, but eventually she stopped and she left.

She knew too.

She was ready too. Somewhen she saw the look in his eyes.

It was a mess. He ruined two lives. Three, counting his own too. But it was not too late to make things right.

***

Jaime thought that making the right thing would have made him feeling better. It didn’t happen, disappointing him. He felt bad for months, so sure that sooner or later he would have regretted the last months. He waited again for a call that never came.

Winter came again.

He could see the snow filling the world from his window for the first time in the last ten years. He was just wishing that someone else could enjoy it. He fantasised about not being alone, with someone. With…

For weeks he felt nothing, pulled by Tyrion in the sweet whirlwind of alcohol, but even alcohol was so unfitting for him. Jaime felt bad again, knowing that he was making mistakes again. Truth to be told, he was passively waiting for something to change, literally lying down.

When on one morning he understood that he was repeating his wrong past attitudes, he decided to do something, hoping that it would have become easier and easier. So Jaime ignored Tyrion’s advice, trying to stay sober to make ground-breaking decisions.

The headache was killing him, but the effort was thrilling him.

Tyrion shook his bottle and reached it out to his brother, from his usual sit on his side in the living room, hanging on the table. “No?” he asked when he noticed his refusal. Tyrion sighed, understanding that he would have come back to get drunk alone soon and that it was about time to let him go on his own road. He refilled his empty glass and drank. “What are you going to do?” he said then.

It was Jaime’s turn to sigh. “I don’t know.” He replied. Once Brienne made him the same question and he still didn’t have an answer. He missed her so much. “I don’t think you can use my help at father’s company.” He said, remembering that conversation at the time.

“No, you were terrible at it.” Tyrion joked. Jaime smiled, he smiled and cleared his throat. “Speaking of which, I think it’s time for you to know something.” Tyrion’s voice was rusted by the alcohol, as an old piece of iron soaked in the water. “I just don’t want you to get mad.”

“Is that bad?” Jaime said still smiling. What could it possibly be?

“When father died, she came. You were with Cercei and I saw her and... I didn’t feel it was the right time, I was trying to support you as he did…” Tyrion was trying to explain, telling a story, trying to come out good from it, even using the memory of their lost father. He wasn’t drinking anymore, probably embarrassed. He left his sentences pending, as if he was expecting Jaime to complete them in his head.

_Her._

She could be just one person.

She came.

“She left this.” Tyrion said, looking for a piece of paper in his wallet and then he stretched it out to his brother.

_Don’t be afraid. Be the happy, sincere and the true boy that I met in high school._

Her handwriting was elegant, clean and tidy. She must have written it quickly, using her left hand as support, as she was used to do when she was in a hurry.

“What does it even mean?” Tyrion asked.

Jaime sighed. He realised that he missed those little things, that he could see her hands moving just as if she was in front of him; that he could hear her voice, lecturing him about grammar or asking uncomfortable questions; that he could image her clear fiery eyes looking through him, studying the situations with those fast movements. He didn’t even notice he was crying.

“Are you angry at me?”

“No. It’s all right, Tyrion. Don’t hide me anything else.” He was just tired of feeling angry. He ran upstairs in his room as a teenager boy (the one that she met in high school). He looked around and stuffs from their childhood were there. There were notes, pictures, a ball, the blanket they used while watching movies, the tickets of the games. She was all around, always there. She was still living in his house and even in every decision he was taking. He fell on the ground. She made him a better person and he needed her absence to understand it.

Jaime missed Brienne so much. His life since her leaving was just a long wait. He understood that he should have stopped waiting and started to do something for her if he wanted her back so much. Impulsively he took his phone and made a call. She would have answered, he knew. After that message, he knew. He was ready for her. Finally, after more than ten years, he was ready. After two years of radio silence.

The phone was silent. Jaime didn’t even know if she had the same phone number. Then it rang.

_Toooot_.

And silent again. His heart was thundering in his chest.

_Toooot_.

He was about to get used to it when he finally heard a feminine voice saying “Hello?” exactly as he remembered.

“Hi.”

And finally he was smiling again. Winter was the best season of the year and he was ready. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.   
> I'm sorry because there is no interaction between the two of them in this chapter, because Brienne isn't present for a lot of time, but I needed a lot of space for Jaime, to make him change for the best.   
> So winter is here!  
> What do you think? I thought about this chapter a lot, I waited to have the best ideas to post it and here we are. I loved writing it. I'm preparing for the next chapter, that is absolutely my favorite.   
> Let me know what you think and what is wrong ;)


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